My suggestion would be to auction off wood from the existing stage to help raise funds for some sort of memorial re: those who once stood on the stage (and the one prior), yet are no longer with us in the physical sense.
Here's the story in today's paper:
http://www.telluridenews.com/articles/2015/05/03/news/doc5543fcced746f603287023.txtTown Park stage getting rebuilt by next summer
Meeting Tuesday to gather public input
By Stephen Elliott
Staff Reporter
Published: Sunday, May 3, 2015 6:05 AM CDT
With 25 years of musical history weighing down the Town Park stage, the Town of Telluride thinks it’s time for a new one.
The town has budgeted $1.8 million for the design and construction of a new Town Park Stage, and has hired Shaw Construction and Charles Cunniffe Architects for the project. The plan is to finalize the design and construction schedule in August, begin construction in late September and complete the new stage in time for summer 2016 festivals and events.
On Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Rebekah Hall, the town is holding an open meeting to solicit public input on the design of a new stage. The architects have already consulted with major users of Town Park, including some festival organizers, but now the town wants to hear what the public wants.
“We’re working with users like the Jazz Festival and Bluegrass, but we also want the general public to have input,” Parks and Recreation Projects Coordinator John Wontrobski said. “We have existing users and know what they want, but we don’t know if there are other uses out there that we haven’t thought of.”
* One such new use could be weddings, which decades ago graced the Town Park stage, but haven’t in years. One of the auxiliary structures anticipated in the new designs is a pavilion near the back of the stage that could be used for weddings in the future. Wontrobski said they get requests for weddings in Town Park all the time, but haven’t been able to accommodate those requests with current facilities.
The town started exploring rebuilding the stage in 2008, and even got input from festivals and initial designs before the economy collapsed and plans were put on hold.
“We’re picking up where we left off in 2008,” Wontrobski said. The town and design teams got existing stage users to update questionnaire responses from 2008, which indicate what different event planners require for sound, lighting, square footage and other specifications.
“We just finished compiling survey results from existing stage users and will be analyzing and using that info to determine whether the 2008 plans still work or whether they need tweaking or redesign,” Amy Levek, a past town planning director who’s working as a planner and facilitator for the Shaw/CCA team, said.
The 2008 designs are available on CCA’s website, at
www.cunniffe.com/projects/telluride-town-park.
The $1.8 million budget includes designs for a new stage and auxiliary buildings, but just the construction of the stage. The auxiliary buildings would be built at a later date with yet-to-be-allocated funds.
The additional construction could include the pavilion for weddings, more permanent catering facilities backstage and retaining walls to allow for more bus parking and semi truck maneuverability.
The construction of a new stage would allow for more weight on the stage and storage beneath.
“Once we hear from the public, it’s up to the design team to synthesize all this together and draw up a conceptual plan,” Wontrobski said.
That conceptual plan would then be run through town boards, including the Historic and Architectural Review Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission before construction begins in September.
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