Columnist Susan Snyder: Desperately seeking a center

Friday, April 25, 2003 | 4:44 a.m.

I don't know whether Emens Auditorium on the Ball State University campus in Indiana was "world class" or not.

But when I was 8 years old, my mother took me to the first of many performances I would see there. It was the Broadway touring company version of "Camelot," featuring John Raitt (Bonnie's dad) as King Arthur and Robert Goulet as Sir Lancelot.

It was thrilling to be swept away in the musical fantasy of knights and kings. Raitt came into the lobby afterward in full costume to greet the audience. My mother recalls it as one of the few times I was rendered speechless.

The valley's kids need that experience sooner rather than later.

And a years-long debate over building a performing arts center in Las Vegas now revolves around whether to put the center on five of the 61 acres of open land the city has acquired near downtown, or on an as-yet-unnamed location somewhere on the valley's northwest side.

Thursday evening, members of the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation Inc. hosted a public meeting at the Charleston Heights Arts Center and presented their plan for building a $120 million, two-theater facility on the 61-acre parcel.

Don Snyder, Boyd Gaming's top guy and the nonprofit foundation's chairman, said such a center will attract quality workers to Las Vegas and boost the downtown economy by diversifying the type of entertainment found there.

The plan he unveiled Thursday calls for creating a $50 million endowment to cover operating costs beyond the money raised for building. The foundation has a memorandum of understanding pending with the city for use of the 61 acres. Las Vegas City Council members are to vote on it May 21.

Snyder is aware of critics who fear another vacant building downtown, but he said such centers are typically found in downtown areas, and there is no excuse for a lack of one here.

"We are the largest community in North America that does not have a world-class performing arts center," Snyder said. "It's about enriching life for our residents."

Don Kemp, a 43-year resident and president of Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Inc. who is competing with the foundation for control of such a center, said need isn't the issue. It's location.

A study by his group shows supporters of such a center live along the Interstate 215 beltway. He wants to build a center on the northwest side, though he hasn't pinpointed a site.

"Downtown Las Vegas is an oddball place," Kemp said after Thursday's meeting.

Maybe. But it's better than no place. I defer to Hal Weller, the Las Vegas Philharmonic's conductor, whose livelihood depends on the center's success. He favors downtown.

There will be no center if the bickering continues.

"We'll be in our graves before it happens. I'm 62 years old, and I'd like to see something other than a debate," he said. "I'd like to ennoble the human spirit in a place where ennobling the human spirit isn't thought of."

Downtown Las Vegas isn't Camelot, but it doesn't have to be. What's important is what happens to people inside the center's walls.

Let's bring our kids some kings other than ones on playing cards.