Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Opera House Gets A Pricey Facelift
Topline: Fixing a bad haircut or a poor paint job is easy. Undoing the renovation of an entire building is less simple — unless the federal government steps in with half a million dollars.
Taxpayers spent $500,000 in 2008 to restore the Tibbits Opera House in Coldwater, Mich. to its original design after the building had already been remodeled twice.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn't stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $500,000 spent on the Tibbits Opera House. The money would be worth over $730,000 today.
Key facts: Tibbits Opera House opened in 1882 at a cost of $25,000 and is now the second-oldest theater in Michigan.
The building went through a flurry of ownership changes and renovations. One owner transformed the building into a movie theater in 1934. Another group of investors turned it into a community theater after the building fell into disrepair.
By 1998, the Tibbits Opera Foundation had decided to restore the building to its original design, despite lacking the money to do so.
The Federal Highway Administration’s National Scenic Byways Program came through with the grant money in November 2008, and the process was complete: after over 100 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the building’s facade looked exactly as it did before any money was spent.
A total of $3.4 million has been spent on the theater’s restoration, which continues today. Only $700,000 came from the theater’s owners; the rest came from grants and fundraisers. The state of Michigan has helped fund stage lights, a new electrical system and new boilers.
Summary: Today the opera house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, just as it likely would have been had its owners left the building untouched.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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