- April 18, 2024
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Ambitious architectural drawings lean up against the wall at the office of the Palm Coast Arts Foundation’s new executive director, Nancy Crouch. One day, on 15 acres of land already purchased in Town Center, a magnificent auditorium will be built with a domed entranceway and stadium seating befitting a major metropolitan venue. Some people are excited about the multmillion-dollar concept, but others are skeptical. Could that kind of upscale arts venue really work in a smallish city like Palm Coast?
“I think Palm Coast has an identity crisis,” Crouch says at a conference table next to the drawings. “Why not? Why can’t you do that here? Just because it was a small bedroom community at one point doesn’t mean it’s always going to be like that.”
Crouch is a visionary. PCAF President Sam Perkovich, who has worked many volunteers hours on the early stages of PCAF and the conceptualization of the Center for the Arts, calls her “an ideas person.”
“If you’ve got an idea, she’ll have another one,” Perkovich said. “She expands on it. It’s just constant. We have to say, ‘Stop! We don’t have enough people to do that.’ Which is a great person to have around.”
Crouch spent 26 years with the Art Institute of Chicago, assisting the president of the organization and also working with the board to explore new projects. Although she doesn’t have an arts background, that environment of artistic creativity became part of her own identity, and when she retired to Palm Coast four years ago, she immediately got involved in PCAF as a volunteer. And the grand architectural drawings are one of the reasons why.
Before her bags were even unpacked in Palm Coast, Crouch had a conversation with Perkovich about the proposed Center for the Arts. Perkovich recalls it this way: “She said, ‘I’m your girl. I want to help you build that.’”
Now, Crouch has been hired, and PCAF is on the verge of beginning the transformation of their plot of land, which is east of Epic Theatres, on the south side of the road. The first step is an outdoor pavilion, including a performance stage. Grass seating will accommodate up to 4,000 people, or 2,500 people when sitting at tables and chairs. This is the final year when the Picnic and Pops concert, featuring the Jacksonville Symphony, will be held on the grass; ground should break in about three months, meaning next year’s event will be on the stage.
The next phase is a roof over the pavilion. Perkovich said she’d like to have the roof completed within 24 months. Characteristically, Crouch wants it done faster. She said, “I’d like to do it within 12 to 18 months. I’m very impatient. Come on! We can do this!”
The funding for the roofed stage, which is referred to as the Outdoor Event Center, comes from state grants. If all goes according to plan, grants would fund about $450,000 of the $500,000 price tag, and so a “Raise the Roof” campaign is in the works to make up the difference.
After the Outdoor Event Center, possibly within four years, would come the Indoor Event Center, which would be large enough for conventions. Finally, years later, the Center for the Arts, with the stadium seating, a dance studio and a black-box theater.
In the meantime, Crouch also is contemplating a battle of the bands, a high-end fashion show and other projects that she says are top secret. Because even now, the success of a facility on this scale is dependent not on a perception of the city’s identity, but on programming. If you have a great facility, and great performances are on the stage, the audience will come, she said.
