Ten years ago, on Nov. 6, 2014, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts was inaugurated with a ribbon cutting and the promise of performances by Emmylou Harris, Broadway stars Norm Lewis and Sierra Boggess, opera great Deborah Voigt, Orlando Ballet and the Bach Festival Society to come.

Among the flowery speeches by various officials — including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who said he was having more fun than any other mayor in the country —  arts-center president and CEO Kathy Ramsberger sounded a reflective note of realism.

“This has been a difficult project,” she said. “But that’s why it’s so worthwhile.”

Now that more than 5 million guests have attended some 4,500 performances, it’s more worthwhile than ever, she says. And she’s feeling grateful. Grateful for the “perseverance” of board members, who at one point personally guaranteed $16 million in loans to get construction started. Grateful for the employees who keep the center — now with four major indoor venues and the outdoor Seneff Arts Plaza — running. Grateful for the government officials who spent years championing the project.

“I truly believe that it’s the finest performing arts-center in the country. And it continues to get better,” Dyer told the Sentinel last week. “I think that the Dr. Phillips Center is a showcase of the power of the arts to make a meaningful impact on the lives of all who call our city home.”

That impact extends beyond the stages.

Economic impact

In 2023, the arts center commissioned an economic-impact study from Oxford Economics, a commercial venture of the business college at Oxford University in the U.K. Looking at a year’s worth of data, the study found the Dr. Phillips Center had a total annual economic impact of $189.6 million and generated $13.2 million in tax revenue for public services.

The survey, which was carried out by Oxford Economics’ Tourism Economics group, attributed $57.6 million in spending to the center itself, paying for its operation. Visitors to the center were estimated to have spent more than $21 million in restaurants and bars, while spending $9.3 million at local retailers. The study found 14% of center ticketholders spent the night in Orlando, paying $10.7 million for hotels and other accommodations.

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“The businesses downtown are seeing the benefit,” said David Barilla, executive director of the city’s Downtown Development Board and Community Redevelopment Agency. This year’s addition of Judson’s Live, which hosts musical acts multiple times each week at the arts center, “was a big win for us” in terms of bringing more people downtown, he said.

It’s not only the number of people the arts center brings downtown, but the diversity of ages, genders and backgrounds it attracts by offering everything from children’s classes to lectures to wellness activities to country-music stars to symphonies.

“Downtown needs to be for everyone,” Barilla said, “and we want to make sure whatever your background or interest is, you find something downtown for you.”

Bumps in the road

There were times when it seemed like Central Florida might never reach this point — the difficulties Ramsberger spoke of on opening day. There were construction delays, financing setbacks, the decision to build the center in phases, bumpy negotiations with Florida Theatrical Association, the local presenter of touring Broadway shows, and later disagreement with the area’s fine-arts organizations about the costs associated with performing in the center.

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Ramsberger said some of the early delays worked in favor of the arts center in the long term: “We had time to listen and learn what works in other cities.”

But she admits some days were personally difficult.

“Sometimes it was hard,” she said, worried that any setback — perceived or real — would look like  “failure from the community’s perspective.”

How did she keep her eye on the future payoff?

“I think a lot of it had to do with the conviction of the board that we had the right plan,” she said. “I believed in the feasibility study and the strategic plan we did in 2005.”

The contentious negotiations with Opera Orlando, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and Orlando Ballet in 2019 over rental rates at Steinmetz Hall played out publicly, with the arts organizations mobilizing their supporters.

“It was hard to negotiate,” Ramsberger said, “but I think everyone ended up happy with the outcome.”

Local arts leaders say they are satisfied.

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“When I came in, things were on an upswing,” said Karina Bharne, who became the Philharmonic’s executive director in January.

“I look back on [the difficult negotiating period] and think that needed to happen because it was a wakeup call,” said Gabriel Preisser, general director of Opera Orlando. “Before that happened, it didn’t feel like we were partners. Now, I do think the Dr. Phillips Center is a partner. I feel like we are building community together, we are building arts and culture together.”

Local and beyond

Statistics state that local and regional arts organizations are regularly performing in all the arts center’s venues — even slightly more often than touring shows. In 2024, the center will host 353 regional productions, compared with 335 commercial touring shows.

As you might expect, the local organizations more often perform in the center’s smaller spaces: The Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater (100 local productions vs. 15 touring shows) and Steinmetz Hall (101 local, 51 touring), while the touring shows tend to use the Walt Disney Theater. That theater, the center’s largest with 2,700 seats, hosted 159 commercial productions, compared with 43 regional.

Judson’s Live, the center’s newest venue, was more evenly split, with 92 regional acts and 109 touring artists.

For local organizations, there is cachet to performing at the Dr. Phillips Center.

“The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, to which [wife] Krista and I made our very first philanthropic gift when we moved to Central Florida, is a crown jewel beyond our expectations,” said Jonathan Ledden, chairman of the Orlando Ballet board. “The entire community should be incredibly proud of this accomplishment.”

Other leaders say Steinmetz Hall, among the world’s most acoustically balanced halls, makes their organizations up their game.

“I think the Dr. Phillips Center has lifted the orchestra,” Bharne said. “Having a performance space that’s beautiful and acoustically rich will only do good things for the orchestra.”

“We need to make sure we have a reputation to match our venue,” said Preisser.

‘A game changer’

Smaller organizations have been able to find a home at the arts center, as well, including Flamenco del Sol, the Phantasmagoria troupe of Victorian storytellers and Central Florida Vocal Arts.

Theresa Smith-Levin, executive director of Central Florida Vocal Arts, said performing in the arts center’s 294-seat Pugh Theater has gotten her organization noticed.

“It’s a great launch pad to grow a company,” she said. “We’ve been able to extend our reach tremendously.”

The center’s technical and marketing abilities help make shows there successful, Smith-Levin said.

“We know there’s going to be consistency in the product we’re able to produce,” she said. “We don’t have to work as hard to sell tickets.”

But she cautions that her organization can only afford the space with the help of Orange County’s rent-subsidy grants, a program organized with United Arts of Central Florida in 2019.

“Without that it would be difficult for us,” said Smith-Levin, who estimated it costs about twice as much to perform in Steinmetz Hall compared with other similarly sized venues.

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Ramsberger said finding multiple funding sources for groups to rent the arts center’s venues was always part of the financial plan, to mitigate the risk to both arts organizations and the center.

Preisser, from the opera company, also stressed that the Orange County grants were essential. Like Smith-Levin, he said despite extra expense, it was worth performing at the center.

“There’s no question about it, that was a game changer,” he said. “We doubled or tripled our audience.”

Work to do

The arts organizations say there are areas that could improve, but Ledden and others said the concerns were the normal ones between a presenter and a venue.

Preisser has been discussing how to improve the audience experience even more, from ticketing to concessions.

“They have been very open to those conversations,” he said.

Smith-Levin suggested it would be useful to have more consistency in the Dr. Phillips Center team with which her organization works, to build stronger relationships.

And all the arts leaders expressed hope they could reserve space at the center further ahead, in order to lock in higher-profile guest artists.

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“We’ve worked through all the growing pains, and there is a constructive relationship,” said Ledden, from Orlando Ballet. “Now that things have settled in, looking toward more long-term certainty around dates and rates for the original resident companies [the ballet, Philharmonic and opera] tops my wish list.”

Ramsberger said she was aware of the arts groups’ wishes and the center was committed to working with them.

For Preisser, the relationship finally feels on equal footing.

“We now realize how much the arts center needs us, and how much we need the arts center,” he said. “We need each other.”

What’s next

Ramsberger has big plans to increase the center’s impact.

“We have to finish building out our nine acres to get this to its full potential,” she said. “A good home is never finished.”

A new tower planned for the back of the center would house a 750-seat theater, six levels of parking, space for classes, rehearsals and wellness programs.

The midsize theater would create more options for arts organizations, who already can be squeezed out. The next production from Central Florida Vocal Arts, the musical “The Light in the Piazza,” couldn’t take place at the center because there were no available dates.

“We would be there for this show if they could accommodate us,” Smith-Levin said.

Ramsberger also wants to see more food and beverage options, a cafe or restaurants. Along with the new parking and rehearsal-space rentals, they would bring in revenue that could fund more free community events.

A proposal for a dramatic remake of the center’s front lawn that caused a stir last summer was released prematurely, Ramsberger said. The goal behind any changes there is to protect the open space, but also introduce shade to the area to make it more useful.

The plans are mentioned in an ongoing lawsuit between the arts center and the CNL Charitable Foundation, which holds the naming rights to the center portion of the front lawn, known as the Seneff Arts Plaza.

“No one ever wants it to get to this point,” she said of the lawsuit, declining to comment further on the pending litigation regarding contractual obligations.

A “listening space,” outside Judson’s Live, is still in the works, plans are underway to present more touring Broadway shows, and Ramsberger is considering experimenting with more programming during the hotter months of the year, when traditionally there are fewer shows.

“I think it’s a misconception that people don’t go to the arts in the summer,” she said.

Watching and listening to people after they’ve attended a play, concert, dance program or other event still reminds Ramsberger of the power of the arts, for which the Dr. Phillips Center is providing a home.

“They feel enriched, their lives have been changed, they have joy, they have been moved,” she said. “That’s the story right there.”

Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment.