PORT ANGELES — Today, officially, is the deadline for Light Up the Lincoln, Scott Nagel and Karen Powell’s effort to raise $235,000 to buy the shuttered Lincoln Theater and turn it into a nonprofit performing arts center.
“We’re doing very well,” Nagel said Saturday afternoon.
“We should have a special announcement next week. We’re working on a major deal” — one about which he didn’t elaborate.
Back in December, Nagel and Powell, his wife and business partner, made the $235,000 offer to Sun Basin Theatres, the Lincoln’s Wenatchee-based owner.
Their plan was not to buy to buy the cinema at First and Lincoln streets for themselves, but instead to gather investors during the 60-day window the seller agreed to grant them.
When the 60 days passed without the appearance of major investors, Nagel got a monthlong extension.
That ends at midnight tonight.
But Nagel said he’s not terribly worried about the deadline; he’s negotiating with Sun Basin for more time.
“We can’t take a year” to raise the money, he quipped.
Nagel is optimistic, and added that more than 20 people have pledged at the $1,000 level, though he declined to give the donation tally so far.
A month ago, Nagel put the Light Up the Lincoln page — replete with a detailed renovation plan and architect Michael Gentry’s rendering of the restored theater — at www.RevitalizePortAngeles.org.
He added links for pledge forms, and in the donations came, ranging from $25 to $10,000.
Since Light Up the Lincoln is under the umbrella of the nonprofit Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts, donations are tax-deductible.
“I think, often, people will step up toward the end,” Powell said earlier this month.
If the $235,000 is not raised, those who pledged donations will get their money back, she added, and “that would be a heartache.”
Powell and Nagel have a long history of event- and festival planning in Seattle and on the North Olympic Peninsula; Nagel is the executive director of the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in Port Angeles every October.
The pair believe the Lincoln Theater, restored as a nonprofit community arts center with film screenings, concerts, theater and even corporate meetings and parties, would greatly reinvigorate downtown — and the wider community.
If their plan doesn’t pan out, Powell added, it would mean that “there weren’t enough people in the city who said ‘Yes.’”
Nagel, for his part, touts the variety of people who have made pledges, from lifelong Port Angeles resident and business owner Ed Bedford to newcomer and Feiro Marine Life Center executive director Melissa Williams.
“Every day we get new donations,” he added.
“It takes time.”
Until he and Powell put that $235,000 check on the table, however, the Lincoln Theater marquee will say what it’s said for months now: Building for sale.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
