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Carpenter Hall debate attracts national group By WENDY SIPOREN ASHLAND -- The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's plan to move Carpenter Hall to make way for a new, larger theater has attracted the attention of a national historic preservation advocacy group. In the October edition of Preservation Magazine, the National Trust for Historic Preservation lists the former Christian Science church as a threatened resource. "It's not such a large town that it can afford to lose one of its crown jewels," said Anthony Veerkamp, program associate for the trust. "Right now you really have a sense of the continuity of things. You start to lose some key buildings ... and suddenly you lose that connection to the past." The conflict over the 1923 building was brought to the attention of the trust by local historic preservationist George Kramer, who serves as one of two volunteer advisers to the organization for Oregon. The festival is planning to build a new theater where Carpenter Hall now sits to replace the 138-seat Black Swan Theatre. Officials say the Black Swan -- originally a used-car showroom -- is too small and awkward for continued use. The new theater would allow an additional 200 seats. The plan would also require some land from a city parking lot on Hargadine Street. "Our position is that the festival really needs to make a compelling case that there's no alternative to moving this building," said Veerkamp. "A year or two of revenue can eventually be made up. But when you take Carpenter Hall out of downtown Ashland it's gone for good." OSF Executive Director Paul Nicholson said he isn't familiar with the organization and hasn't been contacted by it. "If they've got something new to bring to the table, we'd certainly look at it," said Nicholson. He emphasized that a final decision on the building has yet to be made. "I put a stop to design development in June ... while we thoroughly explore all of the suggestions made to us," he said. Nicholson has said the festival hopes to begin construction of the new theater in the fall of 2000 and begin showing plays there in the spring of 2002. A new location for Carpenter Hall has not been announced after the city decided not to put it on the Hillah Temple site. Veerkamp hopes the publicity will make people step back and see the building in a new light -- as well as influence the political discussion over the building's fate. He credits last year's National Trust for Historic Preservation threatened listing of Cannery Row in Monterey, Calif., with turning around city council opinion on a new large-scale development there. "What made Cannery Row special was in danger of being supplanted by its own success," said Veerkamp. Ashland is in a similar situation, he said. "Ashland -- thanks in part to the Shakespeare festival -- has really maintained its (economic) vitality," he said. "It's also a community planning issue -- how much does the community want to be dominated by the Shakespeare festival. That is not our place to decide." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA