Organizers of a planned open-air performing arts venue in Bellefonte are hoping for another big state grant in support of the project.
Centre County’s Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a resolution to request a $1 million Local Share Account (LSA) grant, administered by the Commonwealth Financing Authority and the Department of Community and Economic Development, for The Stage at Talleyrand.
The project previously received a $1 million grant from the DCED. Rick Jacobs, a member of the all-volunteer development committee for The Stage at Talleyrand, said the group has raised “north of $1.1 million.”
“We continue to talk to people about major gifts and [have had] some very promising conversations,” Jacobs said.
The Stage at Talleyrand committee has a fundraising goal of $2.75 million — which includes a 10% maintenance fund — that it wants to reach by May 1.
“At that point we’ll take stock of how much money we have and we’ll build a stage with the funds we have,” Jacobs said. “So we’re not locked into any final design yet. We’re just hopeful that we can bring a big stage.”
The facility is planned for the annex section of Talleyrand Park, with entrance from South Water Street. Current plans, developed with Hoffman Leakey Architects of Bellefonte, include a 3,800-square-foot stage.
That would be able to accommodate groups such as the Bellefonte Community Band, high school marching bands and the Nittany Valley Symphony Orchestra, committee member Tom Bathgate said. As a nod to the region’s history, the stage design simulates iron furnaces.
“We had iron furnaces within a quarter of a mile [of the park] up Logan Branch…,” Bathgate said. “The ironmasters, many of them were Quakers. They were abolitionists and they helped build the underground railroad. They went out of their way to free slaves before the Civil War. It’s something we’re very proud of and that’s one of the looks of the facility, to bring a little of the history to bear.”
The stage will face the open lawn of the park annex, with the back being “a really nice entrance into the town,” Jacobs said. Original concepts included constructing where the borough-owned building that currently houses Pelican’s SnoBalls sits, but that might not necessarily be the final plan.
“Depending on the plan we wind up with, how much land we’re going to have, that may or may not stay,” Jacobs said. “We’re in discussions with the borough now.”
Bathgate noted that a traffic study also will be conducted and will require PennDOT approval as part of the land development plan.
The goal is to build an “acoustically well-designed” outdoor performance facility, something that is lacking throughout Centre County, said committee member and former Bellefonte Mayor Tom Wilson.
“There are no full-time outdoor performance centers in Centre County,” Wilson said. “There’s some part-time ones like the stage up at Tussey Mountain, that kind of thing. We find with the concerts [Talleyrand Park] and using the gazebo — gazebos were designed for oompah bands in the 1800s. We can’t provide dressing rooms or anything. We invite people to our beautiful town. They come in and say ‘Where do we set up?’ Sometimes they have to be out on the lawn, that kind of thing.”
He also hopes the project will help expand the arts in the area.
“Bellefonte’s always been a community that has promoted the performing arts,” Wilson said. “We want to continue to do that and we see this as a step forward in doing that, not only in Bellefonte, but in Centre County in general.”
The venue would also be an attraction beyond Centre County, Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Higgins said.
“Bellefonte is becoming more of an attraction, more and more events, and this would be a wonderful addition to the great place we call Bellefonte,” Higgins said. “This would obviously serve more than Bellefonte, even more than just Centre County. It would be an attraction throughout the entire central Pennsylvania area.”
Vice Chair Amber Concepcion said the project is a worthwhile candidate for the LSA grant program, which distributes the commonwealth’s statewide gaming revenues to projects in the public interest.
“This seems like a good use of local share dollars if the state will consider it,” Concepcion said. “It would certainly bring a lot of visitors to Bellefonte, to Centre County. I can definitely see the need for this kind of a venue.”
Groundbreaking for The Stage at Talleyrand is tentatively scheduled for October 2024, which would allow for it to open by the summer of 2025.
For more information and to donate to the project, visit stageattalleyrand.org.
