...is the number of days from when we planned to open the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts until we actually did.

Today Grammy Award winner and A. MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Rhiannon Giddens and instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi will be the first public event. I am pleased that we will be opening our performing arts center with hometown talent Rhiannon Giddens. Welcome home, Rhiannon!

I want to thank all of the individuals and companies for their generous contributions, without you, this amazing building wouldn’t have been possible. In total there has been over $47 million in private investment.

The success of the private fundraising efforts has resulted in the biggest private-public partnership in Greensboro’s history.

I want to thank the 17,489 Broadway subscribers, (the largest sale for any new venue)!

The road to the performing arts center wasn’t easy and there are so many people responsible for its success. I couldn’t possibly name everyone but I do want to give a special thanks to Robbie Perkins and Matt Brown for their vision in bringing the theater downtown. And, to the great coliseum staff who made it happen.

The hard work of Kathy Manning, Walker Sanders, and Louise Brady, chairs of the initial fundraising committee, helped lead this effort. Thank you to Ross Harris for managing the community-wide Task Force which helped shape programming.

And, thank you to former city councilman Zack Matheny.  Zack and I served on the Finance Committee together, and we knew that in order to make this viable and affordable we needed to craft a way to pay for it without depending on property tax revenue. And we did. Together we proposed paying the city’s half through 1/3 CVB revenue, 1/3 new parking revenue, and 1/3 a ticket facility fee.  It was simple. It worked and it closed the deal!

I am asking for your support. If you want to see more projects like this and the Greensboro Aquatic Center, you need a leader with a proven track record.