Convention Hall? How About an Amphitheater?

Nobody asked me, and it’s none of my business, but I’ll offer my opinion on replacing Cape May’s Convention Hall. I’m sure it’s too late to change course at this point.
This is my 10th year covering Cape May, and I’ve sat through endless meetings on the building of a new hall as well as endless meetings dealing with the Beach Theatre, the Cove Restaurant, the Jetty Motel, a new form of government for Cape May and various revitalization projects.
In any case, my advice would have been not to build a new Convention Hall. I would instead have built an outdoor amphitheater so the beach becomes a giant seating area. My idea was to knock down the old Convention Hall, keep the Solarium and make the beach your seating area for concerts.
I would build the stage as close to the Promenade as possible so the stage and some rows of seating (on the sand) could have a roof over them ending where the current Convention Hall ends on the beach. The stage would face the beach and ocean.
There would be no seats, other than the one God gave you, to park in the sand or on a beach blanket or maybe a folding chair.
I would use the same footprint as the current hall. It should cost a lot less than a new civic center because all you have is a covered stage and an area of roof over a small portion of sand, again remaining in the footprint of the current hall. The Department of Environmental Protection may have been happy because there would be more beach than there currently is with the old Convention Hall.
An example of what I have in mind would be the Susquehanna Bank Center (the former Tweeter Center) in Camden, the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel or the Wolf Trap Center in Vienna, Va.
Much of the seating for those venues is outdoors. We have a big beautiful stretch of sand to sit upon. Have you been to Movies on the Beach in Cape May?
One reason I question spending $7 to $10 million for a beachfront structure is sooner or later it will be destroyed by either a hurricane or winter nor’easter like the famous storm of March 1962. I believe such an event is inevitable. How about building something that can be over washed with seawater and survive just fine because that’s how it was designed?
The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) predicts 2010 will be the worst hurricane season on record because warming of the ocean will produce more frequent and intense storms. Our county emergency management office said we should prepare our homes for a potential 17-foot storm surge. How do you think it will be on the beach in Cape May?
It reminds me of the parable in the Bible about the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell. I can imagine a $7.5-million Convention Hall full of seawater and sand with all its seats, wires and stage ruined.
An outdoor amphitheatre would feature a stage designed to stand the elements, perhaps constructed of concrete. I’m not sure how many folks could be seated on the beach, I imagine at least 2,000.
The lights and sound gear could be removed at the end of the season. Since the sand is your seat, there is no expense generated for buying seats for the city.
Now you may ask where do we put the arts and crafts shows, pancake breakfasts and other indoor events? How about the big gym at the Star of the Sea School, which is now closed?
We also have a gym at the Franklin Street School and Cape May Elementary School.
I am convinced what we are calling a recession is actually the new American economy. I’ll write another column about that in the future. Perhaps, Cape May doesn’t need a Convention Hall at all. Perhaps business here will be slower for the foreseeable future.
I don’t think the city needs to saddle itself with a lot of debt. Maybe an amphitheatre could have been constructed in time for next summer. It would basically be an all weather stage covered by a roof that extends on the beach to where the old building ended.
Where’s the restrooms? The Solarium and the city-owned former Ricker’s store.
Could national entertainment acts be booked into an outdoor amphitheatre? Absolutely, Look at these websites: www.wolftrap.org/ http://pncbankartscenter.org/ and http://susquehanna-bank-center.com/
It’s a shame the city didn’t follow the advice of engineers Remington, Vernick and Walberg some years ago. They recommended spending $300,000 to put a steel I-beam under the current building to shore it up.
It’s too late now but Cape May might have been better off to fix up the current Convention Hall. Everyone seems to like the old hall.
If its foundation had not eroded, it would no doubt still be in use.
This is a new world with a new economy. We need to scale back and adjust to a changing world.