Keller Auditorium backers lower their sights

Instead of a dramatic rebuild, modest upgrade may be sufficient

Today’s Keller Auditorium as seen from Ira Keller Fountain. Photo by Jason Quigley, Portland'5 Centers for the Arts

Keller Auditorium advocates are making their final pitch to the city, and it’s a change of pace.

No longer are they pushing for a dramatic two-block entertainment hub that could cost about $250 million. That vision has fallen from favor as a still more expensive option, building a Portland State University art and culture complex, has gained the lead in the eyes of two separate advisory bodies.

The Halprin Landscape Foundation and Downtown Neighborhood Association now say the Keller will be fine with modest upgrades that would not necessitate closing for up to two years, as would be the consequence of their bolder original vision.

“The Keller is not broken,” conservancy Executive Director Karen Whitman wrote in a June 12 letter to Mayor Keith Wilson and the City Council. “Instead of an expensive and uncertain two-theater vision, the city should invest $10 million-$15 million over five years into the Keller for practical, incremental improvements.”

The City Council is expected to act in August on a recommendation to fund a 3,000-seat auditorium on Southwest Lincoln Street at the south end of the PSU campus. The estimated cost of the PSU theater is $332 million-$449 million, with a total cost of about $857 million including a parking structure, secondary theater and classrooms.

“The city can’t afford a half-billion-dollar project,” said Diana Stuart, a Downtown Neighborhood Association representative.

The PSU option was recommended by the Steering Committee for the Future of Large-Scale Performing Arts, largely to avoid the “catastrophic economic and employment impacts that would accompany a multi-year Keller Auditorium shutdown.”

As for the Keller, it proposes exploration of a space that “honors the arts, the cultural landscape and has public benefits,” the committee found.

Meanwhile, Wilson’s ex-officio committee on the same issue recommends action on the PSU complex first, keeping Keller open until the PSU complex is completed in about 2030. After that, it suggests reducing Keller to 1,200-1,800 seats from its current 3,000.

The winning design in an 2018 international competition championed by the Re-Imagining the Keller Auditorium campaign.

Conceptual image of a Portland Performing Arts + Culture Center at Portland State University.

The table below dissecting the positions of the Mayor’s Ex-Officio committee members was compiled by the Halprin Landscape Conservancy and other advocates for the Keller Auditorium option. They believe some committee member’s positions were misinterpreted to inflate support of the PSU option.