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| Promenade at New Hope, PA (Photo: Charlie Sahner) |
By Charlie Sahner
Sherri and Kevin Daugherty are quite busy these days. It’s well known
that the Doylestown couple and their Bridge Street Foundation are
primarily responsible for saving and renovating the Bucks County
Playhouse after it faced extinction near the end of 2010. The revived
Playhouse is already offering theater performances and events, and it’s
apparent that no expense was spared in the restoration of the historic
structure — $3 million in improvements on a $1.8 million building, to be
exact.
The result is nothing short of spectacular: the building has been
dramatically and tastefully upgraded inside and out. The parking lot and
sidewalk leading to the theater finally make sense from a traffic flow
point of view, and a fenced off section of waterfront adjacent to the
defunct Club Zadar next door has been transformed into a public
riverside walkway reminiscent of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
Providing greater public access to the Delaware River has long been a
dream of many local planners. Although the scenic waterway is vital to
the town’s identity, it is largely inaccessible to many visitors, save
for a couple of “pocket parks”, riverside restaurants, or a stroll along
the bridge to Lambertville. Could the Playhouse and former Club Zadar
(also purchased by the Daughertys) with their adjoining promenade and
large parking area become another Pike Place Market, the highly
successful produce, fish, and crafts center on Seattle’s waterfront?
“There’s a lot of potential,” replied Kevin Daugherty. “You could do
an Oktoberfest or a Christmas market, for example. Our view on the
promenade is to continue it around the back of the Playhouse, where
we’ve designed a series of cascading decks that lead you up to the level
where the deck is currently, put a bar out there for patrons and
others, and provide a place to sit and enjoy the views — again creating
another revenue stream to support the non-profit theater, with the idea
that if we do enough of these things, we don’t have to pass the hat as
much and we can be true to the community.
“We wanted to create an outdoor space, so once we get the promenade
approved and the former Zadar’s property concepts started, we can build a
more permanent, inviting pathway down to the promenade, and we also
hope to continue the gas lanterns down there, as well,” added Daugherty.
In terms of the former Zadar space, Daugherty indicated that plans
have not been finalized yet for its future use, but the ultimate entity
will be for-profit and remain publicly accessible, possibly including a
bar and art production space. The “publicly accessible” aspect here is
key, as many residents have long hoped to avoid the construction of
view-blocking private townhouses at the Zadar site. As a for-profit
business, the former Club Zadar fits in with the portion of the
Daugherty’s ventures not under the Bridge Street Foundation umbrella.
Aside from the Bucks County Playhouse and Zadar site, the Daughertys
have also purchased the twin buildings located at 6 East Mechanic St.,
among the Borough’s oldest, although they haven’t yet decided what do
with them. Sherri Daugherty relocated her successful retail fashion
store Angel Hearts from Newtown to 12 W. Bridge St., where it provides
an upscale anchor on a block reeling from the canal bridge repair of
recent years and tough economy. And then there’s the Lambertville Music
Hall, an ambitious project embodying the Daugherty’s business model, and
potentially putting Lambertville on the live music map.
The proposed Lambertville Music Hall at 57 Bridge St. will be more
akin to the Bucks County Playhouse in its non-profit status, with
funding by the Daughertys and their Bridge Street Foundation, along with
its historical tie-in and self-funding mechanism. Located in the former
First Baptist Church, the Music Hall harkens back to its spiritual
predecessor, the Lambertville Music Circus, says Bridge Street
Foundation President Tanya Cooper. St. John Terrell created the “music
circus” form of theater in Lambertville around 1949, and it involved a
summer stock theater-in-the-round housed under a circus-style big top on
a hill above the town.
A 400-seat music hall with a first-floor restaurant/bar is now
envisioned in downtown Lambertville, and again no expense will be spared
in its restoration. “We have a commitment to doing things the right
way,” observed Cooper.
Taken in toto, the series of real estate ventures undertaken by the
Daughertys and the Bridge Street Foundation seem to largely involve
saving and restoring neglected landmarks and converting them into
self-sustaining organizations. But the moves also provide a glimpse into
a future scenario for the economies of New Hope and Lambertville — that
of a major entertainment hub located midway between two great cities.
Kevin Daugherty sees things more pragmatically. “These have been a
series of happy accidents,” he explained. “We stumbled upon the church
when I was looking for office space, and thought it was a great old
historic building. We believed that if we gave it a purpose and tried to
create a self-sustaining entity, then we could preserve the historical
significance of the building for the community. We’re trying to make the
church a performing arts space, and that makes a lot of sense given
what it had been. That lead us to look around, and we stumbled upon the
Playhouse, and realized that it needed some attention, and then it’s
been just a sequence of events from there,” continued Daugherty.
But can the up-scaled venues remain accessible to the community in terms of ticket prices?
“It’s a definite focus and a must,” he said. “These are
not-for-profit buildings, so the one thing that lets us keep the price
down is that we’re not trying to make an enormous profit here, we
generate funds that are self-sustaining for the business.
“Frequently non-profits have to do lots of fundraising,” added
Dougherty. “But it’s our view that we can improve the performance
quality at certain times, like what we’re doing this summer with Jed
Bernstein’s performance group, then maybe the ticket prices are higher
for some of those kinds of things. Other times of the year, there will
be more community involvement-type aspects — kids’ programs, educational
programs and more regional type activities — that’s where maybe you’ll
see something that’s a little more discounted and accessible,” he said.
Dougherty is also quick to point out that the Playhouse has a large
parking lot that provides an additional source of revenue. “The same
concept applies to the Lambertville Music Hall, ” he said. “Assuming it
follows the same pattern as the theater, we’re going to need additional
revenue sources to help support it. We don’t have a parking lot, but we
do have a first floor that would make a great restaurant/bar area that
people can enjoy at any time and also around the shows, and that can
help support the non-profit performing space.”
A business model that could indeed prove
successful, if not yet universally accepted. This much is for sure:
Sherri and Kevin Daugherty are restoring local landmark structures that
have often fallen into neglect, and are doing so without public funds.
These projects tie together history, art, entertainment and commercial
components, and their growing presence may have a profound effect on the
identity and economy of New Hope and Lambertville for years to come.
