Updated Oct. 6 with additional information about fundraising efforts
During their Oct. 7 meeting, City Commissioners will consider whether to approve another $382,690 in downtown tax increment financing to complete Mansfield Theater projects.
The Downtown Development Partnership voted to recommend approval during their Aug. 27 meeting.
The city commission approved $400,000 in TIF funds last year toward the project, which also received $250,000 in a Montana Historic Preservation Act grant and $567,500 in State Local Infrastructure Partnership Act funds.
If approved, it would bring the total TIF allocation for the Civic Center projects to $782,690.
City staff requesting additional TIF funds for Mansfield Theater projects
The projects include replacing the theater seats, restoring the theater ceiling and upgrading the Civic Center elevator, which is expected to see more use as the Municipal Court moves upstairs.
City Commissioners approved contracts for the seats and the ceiling restoration with funding shortfalls.
During their Sept. 16 meeting when commissioners set a public hearing on the funding request for their Oct. 7 meeting, Commissioner Rick Tryon said he was in favor of the new seating and preserving the theater, but “now I’m just a little bit concerned.”
He asked how the city squared spending money on improving the theater while talking about “mothballing” city facilities.
City approves contract for public facilities feasibility study
There has been no public discussion of mothballing the Mansfield Theater. Commissioners issued a contract in August for a consultant to review and analyze operations of the theater and other Civic Center events and facilities to include the building formerly occupied by the Children’s Museum behind the Civic Center.
City Manager Greg Doyon said that staff had believed they could fundraise toward the project but “they were not successful. That effort, quite frankly, didn’t work.”
The Civic Center has been “undergoing what I call the big shuffle for years,” Doyon said with reconfiguring and modernizing offices trying to maximize the available space for the city services provided out of the building.
Doyon said that when the commission allowed Municipal Court to move upstairs, it opened more options for how to use the Civic Center.
There’s a long-term plan, Doyon said, and though it needs some TLC, “I think the building is fine. This is an awesome building, it really is.”
Old Mansfield Theater seats for sale as replacement project gets started
Doyon said that since the Children’s Museum moved out of the city-owned building behind the Civic Center, his idea if to move planning into that building and can move legal staff upstairs adjacent to the new court space. There’s also potential event space on the upper level of the former museum building, he said.
It’s a plan Doyon has been mentioning in public meetings for several years as the museum’s lease was ending and commissioners approved renovating the Missouri Room into Municipal Court.
Doyon said during the Sept. 16 meeting that the city had previously considered whether it made sense for the city to have a convention center and converting it to office space, but large productions that use the theater often use the convention space so there wasn’t interest.
City approves Mansfield Theater ceiling repair project, also with a shortfall
Tryon said his question was primarily related to the theater and the money being spent on renovations.
“I’m just wondering now, since we’ve spent the money, now talking about it being an outdated facility, am I wrong in that? Am I mischaracterizing the conversation,” Tryon said.
To which Doyon replied, “I haven’t heard that at all.”
Kinzler said the additional funds were needed to match grants and pay the contracts already awarded for the repairs and renovations, some of which were safety concerns.
“Ceiling tiles were actually falling down,” she said.
Facing shortfall for Mansfield theater projects, staff looking to private donors
Tryon said his question was in the context of the city hiring a consultant to evaluate use of those facilities and that Civic Center events, which is an enterprise budget fund, had come up as a discussion point of whether the city should subsidize those operations as there are other event venues in town.
Doyon said he better understood Tryon’s question at that point, but that the Mansfield Theater is a different venue space than what’s available elsewhere in the community.
He said the consultant is looking at how the city rents and operates the theater and other rentable event space, not disposing of the space.
Commissioner Joe McKenney said, “I have some concerns,” but would save them for the Oct. 7 public hearing.
The seat installation was supposed to be completed before the Great Falls Symphony opens its season on Oct. 4, but several hundred seats have not yet be installed on the balcony, limiting the symphony’s ability to sell tickets for the opening season.
The city’s Mansfield advisory board was scheduled to meet Sept. 19 but did not have a quorum and the meeting ended after a few minutes. While waiting to see if board members would arrive, Owen Grubenhoff showed the few attendees present, including The Electric via Zoom, boxes of the new seats in the convention center.
The board’s Sept. 19 meeting agenda included a theater seating update, 2025-2026 theater season, TheaterDNA consulting, Mansfield Foundation and staffing needs.
The board’s next scheduled meeting is Oct. 17.
In May, they approved a $445,000 contract for the ceiling repair to Custom Plaster, LLC as a sole-sourced project, with $250,000 of state grant funds and $147,300 of downtown TIF funds leaving a $47,700 shortfall.
During their Oct. 7 meeting, commissioners will be asked to approve final payment on the ceiling project with $22,024.50 to Custom Plaster and $225.50 to the state miscellaneous tax fund.
The staff report for the Oct. 7 meeting states that the ceiling project was to receive $169,496 of downtown TIF funding with the state grant, leaving a $25,504 shortfall that staff intends to cover with additional TIF funds staff are asking commissioners to approve later on the agenda that night.
Sylvia Tarman, the city’s CDBG administrator/project manager, told The Electric that the change since May was that staff assigned the $60,200 contingency from the original TIF request to the projects as bids came in higher than original estimates: $38,000 to the elevator and the remaining $21,196 to the ceiling project, leaving the ceiling shortfall at $25,504.
Staff said that most of the damaged tiles were replaced with “back stock” original tiles and some areas that were less damaged but stained were painted to match the intact areas.
The ceiling project began in June and was completed at the beginning of August, according to staff.
Wall stenciling was repainted to remove stains and look new; a few small areas where wall plaster had delaminated were stabilized and repainted; all ceiling tiles on the upper ceiling were secured by placing multiple small screws in each tile, making them more secure and less prone to falling even if there’s future water damage, according to staff.
Mansfield seat project progressing, staff looking at fundraising options
In May, city staff wrote in their agenda report that they were continuing their fundraising efforts to support Mansfield Theater projects and any money raised would be used toward that shortfall before additional city funds are used.
In a May 8 email, obtained by The Electric through a records request, Hillary Shepherd, Great Falls Symphony director, offered to collaborate with the city on fundraising for the theater.
She offered to help with the sale of seat sponsorships but said that such a fundraiser would “cannibalize our own fundraising efforts for the season, so I have to insist on taking a cut of the funds raised. I still feel that if we approach it collaboratively like this, it will be a win/win for both the city and for us.”
Shepherd’s offer included the symphony advertising for the sponsored seats, collecting payment, paying all credit card fees and other associated fees, provide sponsors with a tax deductible receipt and communicate the sponsorship orders to the city regularly with the city’s responsibility to be ordering the engraved brass labels per the donor’s specifications and installing them on the appropriate seats soon after the sponsorship had been paid.
Sales for the seats could be ongoing until all the seats were sponsored, Shepherd wrote, and she suggested a rate of $600 per seat with the symphony collecting $250 and the city collecting $350 per seat.
“The maximum net amount that could be raised for the city is $487,500 if every seat is sponsored and if the cost of a custom brass label is around $25,” Shepherd wrote, and if that was agreeable to send some details so she could draft a partnership agreement.
City staff did not respond to Shepherd’s email.
Asked on Oct. 6 why staff hadn’t responded, Tarman told The Electric that it was discussed within the finance department but staff wanted to run it by Doyon, who she believed was on vacation so that took time, and they then moved into construction in the theater.
“When we discussed with Greg, we came to the consensus that it would be a heavy lift administratively, and that it would take quite a long time to collect those funds. We decided to focus on going back to the TIF to see if we could fund it more completely, rather than piecemeal. We talked about potentially doing this once the construction was done, but we didn’t officially make a decision on that,” Tarman told The Electric.
The ceiling project shortfall comes after commissioners approved the $995,190 seating contract in December, at which time, staff said they recommended awarding the contract despite the overage of $345,190, plus $12,000 in design fees to Nelson Architects.
At that time, staff said they were intending to fundraise to make up the Mansfield projects shortfall.
In March, city staff told commissioners that with the seats and ceiling projects, they were looking at a $389,890 shortfall of available funding for the Mansfield projects.
City approves Mansfield seat replacement contract [2024]
During the Aug. 27 Downtown Development Partnership meeting, city staff said the shortfall was now $382,690.
When commissioners approved the initial $400,000 of TIF funds in 2024, the seat project was estimated at $611,500 and the ceiling project was an estimated $397,300 and the elevator was $120,000 for a total of $1,128,800 and the city had a funding package of $1,227,500, according to city staff.
But, bids came back significantly higher at $1,007,190 for the seats; $445,000 for the ceiling and $158,000 for the elevator, for a total cost of $1,610,190.
The seating bids were also based on initial, incorrect information, according to staff.
Children’s Museum closing current location while continuing search for new home [2024]
In May 9 email to The Electric, Tom Hazen, city grants manager, wrote that the SLIPA application was based on an older estimate that had been presented “to the Mansfield as a ‘quote’ that was purported to be good for five years. Unfortunately, outside factors caused price increases that caused bid submissions to exceed the estimate. And the estimate was for a lower number of chairs. Mansfield was, at that time, considering having an open ‘standing area’ in front of the stage for contemporary music shows that could be filled with portable seating for traditional shows. Unfortunately, this design difference was not taken into account when the SLIPA applications were prepared.”
Staff told commissioners in December as they voted to approve a contract totaling more than available funds that they’d begin a fundraising campaign.
City approves lease extension for Children’s Museum [2024]
In February, city staff told the Mansfield Advisory Board that they’d start making donation asks the following week.
Staff told commissioners during the March 18 meeting that if they were okay with the proposed donation tiers for fundraising they presented that night, staff would start making asks.
Commissioners approved the ceiling restoration contract in May with a shortfall and asked no questions about the contract, funding shortage or status of staff’s fundraising efforts toward the theater projects.
In a May 9 email response to The Electric regarding the project shortfall and fundraising, Hazen wrote that “staff is still reaching out to potential individual and corporate donors requesting contributions to the project. At this time, unfortunately, we have not received any donations to help address the difference. The city still plans to pursue donations and will submit an additional request to the TIF for funding. The hope remains to fund this project with non-general fund dollars. However, if there is not sufficient capital contributed to the campaign the city may be forced to consider project scope adjustments to meet the funding available.”
City Commission approves TIF funds for Mansfield Theater projects [2024]
Staff said during the Aug. 27 Downtown Development Partnership meeting as the board considered staff’s request for more TIF funding that they had attempted fundraising, presenting information packets to local donors and made direct contact with large corporate and individual donations. Hazen said staff met with the Mansfield Advisory Board and the Great Falls Symphony Association for endorsements and support.
“Unfortunately, none of these parties were willing to donate,” Hazen told the DPP, as those contacted didn’t feel they should support a government agency through donations.
Hazen said though it’s the city, arts funding is declining and within the city, the theater has to compete with other priorities, such as public safety.
City approves new Mansfield business model [2024]
The city attempted to sell the old theater seats as a fundraiser and raised about $3,000, staff said during the Aug. 27 DDP meeting.
The remaining old seats have since been disposed of since the city didn’t have storage space, staff said.
Mansfield Theater projects were identified as a potential priority use of ARPA funds in 2022, and eventually set as a second tier project, but no funding was allocated at the time as the previous commission opted to wait until the city received notification of the result of an application for the Montana Historic Preservation Grant application. The city was awarded a $250,000 grant.
Local projects receive historic preservation grants [2023]
In March 2025, Hazen and Sylvia Tarman of the city finance reviewed the city’s projects being funded through the State-Local Infrastructure Partnership Act that the Montana Legislature approved in 2023.
The Mansfield seat replacement project is one of them.
City seeking grant for Mansfield Theater improvements [2022]
The theater currently has 1,780 seats with 917 on the main floor, 282 on the lower balcony and 581 on the upper balcony, according to the city.
Owen Grubenhoff, Civic Center events manager, told the advisory board in January that staff was going with deeper and wider seats, but trying to maintain about 1,500 seats.
