Riverside’s actors’ village project draws rave previews

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”8″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_imagebrowser” ajax_pagination=”0″ order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]For any fan who’s ever waited outside a Broadway theater for autographs, Riverside Theatre is about to create a venue with access well beyond the stage door. And though that’s hardly the point of the regional theater’s new Star Suites hotel, it’s sure to be a plus for the guests who stay in any rooms not taken up by Riverside’s professionals flying in for a production.
The $8.4 million project is planned for a 3.54-acre parcel that Riverside Theatre bought from the Los Angeles Dodgers, just outside the Dodgertown sports compound on Aviation Boulevard. Unofficially dubbed the “actors’ village,” the project will include 60 extended-stay one-bedroom suites, available to outside guests when not in use by Riverside. There’s to be a center courtyard and garden terrace for gatherings, and eventually a pool, says Ray McGowan, who chairs the Board of Trustee’s committee on the project.

The housing project is a separate LLC under Riverside’s 501-c3 umbrella, meaning donations to the project are tax deductible, McGowan points out to donors, who he says have largely been members of the Board of Trustees as well as “patron producers,” a group of donors who give at a high level and receive added theater-going opportunities.
“My letter went out in May,” says McGowan. Fundraising is ongoing, but McGowan expects to be “75 to 80 percent funded” when groundbreaking takes place in November, if all goes well with the permitting process. The project is expected to be open a year later, when the first cast arrives in Vero Beach for the 2018-19 season opener.
McGowan expects the actors’ village to be a big draw for the Actors’ Equity theater professionals Riverside hires for its productions. Many already know Riverside’s reputation. The big-budget regional theater attracts top talent with its lush beachside setting, accommodating staff and generous supporters. And it doesn’t hurt that Vero’s season – October to April – provides a welcome winter respite from New York, where many in the theater’s casts reside.
Star Suites will consolidate the now-fragmented housing leased around town for the theater’s half-dozen shows per season. Today, 25 apartments with a total of 31 beds are scattered around eight locations.
They are not only furnished, but are prepped with linens, dishes, pots and pans. The actors and directors typically stay five to six weeks, and there can be as many as three casts overlapping.
The overflow cast and crew get rooms at local hotels, chiefly SpringHill Suites – on Riverside’s tab, of course.
It falls to Jon Moses, Riverside’s managing director and COO, to arrange all those leases. Along with booking rooms around multiple rehearsal and run schedules, it’s largely up to Riverside’s production manager, Kyle Atkins, to see that the apartments are cared for. That includes not only cleaning at each change of occupancy, but repairs and general upkeep as well.
The cost of the estimated 10,000 room nights is close to $500,000 a year “and continuing to increase,” says McGowan.
“We’re essentially in the hotel business now,” McGowan says. The native New Yorker became involved at Riverside after retiring as executive vice president of ExxonMobil’s chemical operations in Houston. He moved to Vero Beach in 2002 with his wife Sonia.
McGowan is on Riverside’s Board of Trustees and chaired the finance committee when the idea for building an actors’ housing complex arose in 2014. McGowan, Kite, Rooney and Moses have led the effort, with the help of CEO and artistic director Allen Cornell, board president Heidi Waxlax and trustees Bill Lane and Bill Scully.
“We’re very hopeful that the operating costs of a new hotel will cover the costs we’re currently experiencing with outside rental.”
Any suites rented by people outside the theater will “accrete to our earnings at the theater,” says McGowan. All 60 extended-stay suites could well be booked at points during the season, McGowan says, but he’s expecting to accommodate overflow guests visiting the Historic Dodgertown complex in the summer, as well as families of patients at nearby Indian River Medical Center.
The location, on the southeast corner of Flight Safety Drive and Aviation Boulevard, is across from the Vero Beach Airport, which now has direct flights from Newark to Vero. And a short walk away is Walking Tree Brewery, a lively hangout that opened in a converted World War II airplane hangar.
As the economy began to recover following the 2008 real estate collapse, the market for reasonably priced rentals – nice enough to meet Equity standards – has steadily increased. Recently, McGowan says, short-term rentals in season are “virtually non-existent,” forcing Riverside to lease properties all  year around.
With no end in sight to the scarcity of affordable properties in Equity-worthy locations, the theater began looking at building its own housing.
That was in 2014. As a team of Riverside executives and board members considered designs and scouted locations, the Dodgertown property was brought to the attention of the theater by Keith Kite. Kite has developed multiple hotel properties including the Hampton Inn near Miracle Mile as well as the SpringHill Suites.
Kite has provided invaluable advice to the theater, McGowan says, not only in finding the location but in estimating project costs. The Memphis-based architects on the project, LLW Architects, have been used by Kite on several of his projects. Civil engineering will be done by Vero’s Kimley-Horn, and Proctor Construction will oversee the build.
Several large donors already have naming rights for various parts of the complex, which includes three wings and a clubhouse. There will also be a few pet-friendly suites.
“It’s been an exciting project to work on, just thinking about how we can accommodate actors and give them the best of the best,” says Patti Rooney, Riverside’s newly named CFO.