According to Centralia officials, the city does not have enough money to satisfy the Historic Centralia Fox Theatre Board of Directors’ desire to continue the restoration of the historic theater in downtown Centralia.
City Manager Michael Thomas said during Tuesday’s Centralia City Council meeting that even if the council decided to issue a councilmatic, non-voter-approved bond for the roughly $1.5 million that the board needs to reach a certificate of occupancy, he couldn’t promise that the project could cross the finish line. He also warned of a number of negative impacts the city would face if the council approved a possible bond.
The board presented to the city council on Feb. 24 and told councilors that the restoration project had hit a standstill due to a lack of available funding. Andrew Christensen, president and owner of Construct, Inc., the contractor with the restoration project, said the project is currently about 50% funded.
While board members did not formally ask the council for financial assistance during its presentation, they told The Chronicle during a March 2 tour of the facility that their top priority for possible funding would be for the city to financially invest in the theatre’s restoration project, which has received $700,000 of work over the past three and a half years. A potential funding option that Board President Joe Clark proposed would be another council-approved bond, which the council did for $1 million back in 2018. The city is still paying between $64,000 and $69,000 in debt servicing on that bond each budget cycle, and the debt will be paid off in 2039 — 21 years after the council’s approval.
Thomas brought the request of the theatre board to the council due to The Chronicle’s reporting from the tour. Clark told The Chronicle that the board hopes sufficient funding, wherever it may stem from, will come in the next three to six months given its tight timelines with its other funding sources that it hopes to leverage, such as historic tax credits.
“This was not an ask during their presentation to you, but now it’s being published as an ask of the city to provide $1.5 million to get them basically to occupancy,” Thomas said.
Thomas added that when the council opted to issue the bond in 2018 for the Fox Theatre, it took 10 months to move forward. Thus, if the city council voted again to support the theatre with another bond, it wouldn’t meet the board’s timeline requirements.
“That timeline that (Clark) is proposing is nearly impossible,” Thomas said.
Clark clarified to The Chronicle that the board did not make a formal ask of the city during its presentation because the board was not prepared at that time to determine a final amount or the terms and conditions of a bond that “would be acceptable to the city. Rather, the board was primarily introducing options for funding streams that could be explored. Clark also spoke to the 10-month timeline of the 2018 bond.
“I believe that we’re getting close to end-of-the-year types of funding availability and that expediting any of the possibilities for funding would be in the best interest of the project,” Clark said. “I would have to defer to a bond attorney in terms of timelines, but I’m not convinced that a 2018 reference to a bond timeline is germane to a 2026 bond timeline.”
While the city has supported the restoration project in the past, this isn’t the first time that the city has had to turn down financial support for the Fox Theatre project. In the spring of 2025, according to Thomas, the Fox Theatre board approached a non-quorum of council members to discuss possible funding opportunities for the theatre. They did not initially make a formal ask of the council but rather a “temperature check” on possible solutions. Further conversations led to a proposal from the board, which was turned down by the city.
“At the time, the council did not commit to providing more funding or the funding requested because they just didn’t know if there was available funding in our general fund or lodging tax funds to support it at the time,” Thomas said. “About a week after they made their proposal to us, I reported back to them that the city would not be able to fund their request and unfortunately we would have to decline the $400,000 ask of the city at that time. We didn’t have the money then. We still don’t really have the money now.”
Thomas said that the city community development team devises a plan to help the Fox Theatre acquire a limited certificate of occupancy to allow for small-scale events in the lobby area while the restoration project is complete. He noted that the proposal would, if the Fox Theatre board meets certain requirements, allow them to “open very soon.” Thomas said Tuesday that he requested that the community development team present the proposal to the Fox Theatre board as soon as possible. Clark indicated that this presentation has not yet been made and that the city may not entirely understand the steps needed to obtain a certificate of occupancy, regardless of if it is in full or limited capacity. He said just to apply for a certificate of occupancy would cost between $1.5 million to $1.8 million to host any events in the theatre.
“I think [the city], even though we’ve described it to them a number of times, is just not completely aware of all of the pieces. We’ve tried to inform the city in regard to how this funding needs to come about and the processes that we need to go through to obtain the funding and then to executive on the necessary construction components to get to that certificate of occupancy,” Clark said.
Thomas acknowledged that the decision to potentially issue a bond toward the Fox Theatre board is entirely in the hands of the city council to decide. However, he ran through a laundry list of possible trade-offs the city would face if it passed a $1.5 million bond.
Thomas stated that the money for the bond would come out of the city’s lodging tax fund, which services the city’s current debt and other grants and loans. Along with the debt servicing the city pays to the Fox Theatre for the 2018 bond, it also pays about $80,000 a year in debt servicing for its support to the Northwest Sports Hub in bonds that will be paid off in 2030, Thomas said.
Payments on these debts come from lodging taxes, which Thomas said have not “seen a lot of significant growth in the last few years.”
“At this moment, we don’t have available lodging taxes to use as collateral to cover all this new debt, our current debt, and the additional annual grants that we provide to other entities in the city,” he said, adding that a $1.5 million bond to the theatre would “kill off” its lodging tax grant program. Debt servicing payments would total approximately $120,000 to $130,000 per year for about 20 years just for a potential $1.5 million bond. On top of the concurring payments, the city would pay a total of $270,000 in debt servicing each year, according to Thomas.
Property taxes can be used to leverage some of the debt servicing, but if property taxes are used as collateral, they can’t be used for anything else out of the general fund, Thomas said. That would include additional staff or police personnel, which may be a necessity once the city chooses to annex territories in its urban growth area. He added that the city would also have less funding to pay for indigent defense, which is required by the state, as well as for building maintenance requirements at the train depot and the library, upcoming maintenance costs for the United Learning Center, insurance costs, and its tree replacement policy, among others.
Deputy Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston acknowledged the efforts by the current Fox Theatre board, which she said have brought “a lot of food and good effort to the work” in recent years after years of delays. But, she expressed concern with the trajectory of the relationship between the city and the Fox Theatre board.
“Having this fail is a serious concern. I feel like we’re on the verge of the relationship between the city and the Fox board turning adversarial, and I’m very concerned about that,” she said. “We need to stay good partners, all of us in this together, and find a potential way forward.”
Clark doesn’t see the relationship between the board and the city as heading toward an adversarial path but rather as business partners.
“I think the relationship between the Fox Theatre board and the city is a result of the city not completely understanding their position in this relationship, meaning they own this building,” he said. “They are responsible for this building. Making contributions almost 10 years ago does not compensate in a way that allows this project to be completed, and if they want it completed, they’re going to have to invest. I don’t see that as adversarial. I see that as a business relationship. I feel that the Fox Theatre board has presented numerous times to the city when asked, and I think the city has a clear picture of what we’re trying to accomplish and what funding is necessary to accomplish those goals and objectives. But perhaps they don’t, and if that’s the case, as has been in the past, we’re always willing to meet with them and discuss options for funding, for phasing of construction, or any other topics that they may want additional information on.”
If the city does not decide to provide funding for the Fox Theatre, the board has other additional ideas about potential funding, which Clark said expire in the next 90 days. If funding doesn’t come, both the city and Clark said the theatre will be turned back over to the city, which would then be responsible for utilities and maintenance.
