AUBURN | If there’s a point where disappointment meets optimism, that’s precisely where most downtown Auburn business owners stand on the recent cancellation of the $7.8 million Schwartz Family Performing Arts Center project.
The 12,450-square-foot theater at 1-7 State St., developed jointly by the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival and Cayuga Community College, would have served as a 300-seat festival venue during the summer and an educational space for the college during the rest of the year.
Proprietors like Guillermo Salina, owner of Osteria Salina at 18 State St., looked forward to the surge in foot traffic.
Salina said his goal when he opened the restaurant and creperie in December was to survive until the theater opened. Then, he hoped, its nightly festival shows in the summer would propel his business “over the top,” he said.
“I put everything on the line for this business,” he said.
People like Salina are whom Nash’s Framing & Art co-owner Kim Pearson feels worst for, she said. Though her 12 State St. shop existed long before the Schwartz project was announced, Salina and future State Street entrepreneurs Mike Orofino and Dawn and Marc Schulz were investing in its potential, she said.
“It’s like there was a balloon and someone stuck a pin in it,” Pearson said.
A common object of the business owners’ ire was Joseph Camardo, whose legal challenges concerning the project’s environmental review resulted in its cancellation, festival organizers said. However, Bernie Simmons, co-owner of A.T. Walley & Co. bar at 119 Genesee St., wasn’t so quick to condemn Camardo.
“Whatever he felt, he was passionate and felt compelled to do what he did,” Simmons said.
Simmons at first shared his fellow business owners’ disappointment — but that soon gave way to optimism, he said. The festival could find an alternate downtown Auburn site for the theater, he said, or it could still come to occupy the empty space where the Kalet’s building once stood through other avenues.
If not, the now-vacant lot could make a great green space, he said, either for A.T. Walley’s outdoor gatherings or just for people to enjoy their coffee in the fresh air.
Whatever happens, Simmons said, downtown will rebound.
“Auburn has been kicked around a lot of years,” he said. “We’re resilient.”
Auburn Downtown Business Improvement District Executive Director Connie Reilley feels the mood is becoming more positive with each passing day. Along with relief that the Schwartz saga has concluded exists a belief that the festival will find another place to build the theater, she said.
“It’s a bump in the road, but everybody is going forward. People are positive,” she said. “Downtown has flourished to a new level and will continue to just get better.”
Orofino shares Reilley’s sentiments, and said he remains undeterred to move forward with Grillworks, the Downtown Deli founder’s new restaurant slated to open in late 2014 across from Osteria Salina.
The positive side of the Schwartz project’s cancellation, Orofino said, is that it has galvanized downtown. Auburn’s belief in the theater’s significance to the area has been renewed, he said — and will likely lead to it being built elsewhere.
“What drew me to downtown is the momentum, not just the theater,” he said. “I’ve been relying more on the positive energy that’s been happening downtown the last 25 years.”
Salina, however, is a little reluctant to get his hopes up for a new theater. Instead, he’s found solace in the expressions of support he has received from customers at Osteria Salina since the Schwartz news broke.
“Theater or no, Auburn is going in the right direction,” Salina said.
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