The Gainesville City Commission directed the city manager to bring back recommendations to support Heartwood Soundstage, as it does with other public purpose art entities.
The motion came during an item with Heartwood staff asking for $55,000 to cover ongoing deficits.
Chelsea Carnes, director of Heartwood, said the music venue has been successful over the last nine years and helped the South Main Station district thrive. But after recently becoming a nonprofit, she said Heartwood is reaching out for a small grant that will push the venue to solvency moving forward.
“One thing from the top, I want to say is this funding request doesn’t come from a place of failure. It comes from a place of success, actually,” Carnes said.
She said Heartwood hasn’t been included in some grants previously because of their for-profit status, which also hampered philanthropic donations. Gainesville dedicated $6.9 million in COVID-19 pandemic-era funding for nonprofits.
The site is also a block away from Main Street, so it couldn’t get façade grants through the city. Though Carnes said their business neighbors in South Main Station used the grants, which helped boost the area overall.
Despite the success in drawing events and attendees, Carnes said Heartwood finished $250,000 behind over the past two years—some coming from a 2020 small business loan to keep afloat during the pandemic. They’ve been able to make up $195,000 of that deficit.
“By the end of this year, I don’t know where that extra [$55,000] is going to come from if we don’t get support from the commission,” Carnes said. “So, I mean, yeah, it’s a little dire. I don’t want to underplay it.”
Carnes took over in September and said she inherited the $250,000 debt. A grant from Alachua County’s tourism bed tax removed $101,800 of the problem. After that, she said she took a hard look at the budget and was able to reduce another $95,000, leaving the deficit they’re asking the city to help fill.
Carnes said of all the boards and commissions with existing grant programs, she wasn’t able to find one that fit Heartwood. The closest one, the Professional Arts Producing Institutions grant, differentiates producers from presenters, and Carnes asked for the city to consider tweaking that language.
Gainesville commissioners discussed how to fit a specific ask into its already existing programs to ensure fairness to all local businesses and nonprofits.
“$50,000 is sort of a rounding error within the budget, but it’s also, how do we make sure that there’s a fairness in it and that, even for a relatively small amount of money, that everyone feels like their tax dollars are being spent in a way that is open and transparent for the rest of the community,” Commissioner Bryan Eastman said.
He called Heartwood one of the best things that has happened to the city in a long time.
After an hour and a half of presentation and deliberation, Eastman made a motion to refer Heartwood’s request to the city manager and ask for him to return with options to fund and find public benefits from the soundstage.
Eastman said it’s in line with how the city already funds Free Concert Fridays, the Hippodrome Theatre and other downtown events. The motion passed unanimously with commissioners James Ingle and Desmon Duncan-Walker absent.