March 2, 2022

Newsline Flooding

Flooding threatens the future of the Hangar Theatre

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he future of the Hangar Theatre is up in the air as the city works to figure out how to handle the annual flooding of the building. The Hangar, and the land it sits on, is owned by the city. About a decade ago the theatre company fundraised a capital project to renovate the building into its current form, including raising the building 10 inches to try and avoid flooding. It hasn’t worked. “We have done everything we can do to mitigate when it floods,” Adam Zonder, production manager at the Hangar, said. “We have flood barriers at all the doors, [during the renovations] floors were regraded and the floor was raised 10 inches. In the last four years we’ve had water in the building four times. This past October we had seven inches of water. If we hadn’t raised the floor it would have been 17 inches. It’s not a sustainable option to continue to operate like this and have to continuously worry every time it rains that water is going to come into the building and disrupt everything we do.” Chief of Staff Faith Vavra said there have been ongoing discussions to work through

the issue, and the group has landed on three options. The first is including the Hangar and its land in a study that is already slated for Cass Park. Vavra said she’s spoken to the engineering firm about including the Hangar to assess flood mitigation options and the firm told her it would cost about $30,000. The second option is flood insurance. Currently the flood insurance is paid for by the theatre and is expensive, so Vavra was curious if Common Council would consider authorizing the city to help with the cost. The third option is to support the Hangar in finding a new location. “It isn’t the optimal option, they have put a lot of money into that building,” Vavra said.

She added that while the theatre company is responsible for everything inside the building, the city is responsible for everything outside. She said she’s met with Mike Thorne, the superintendent of public works, and they feel as though there isn’t really anything else the city can do to mitigate the flood risk. Vavra was in front of the City Administration meeting on Feb. 23 to get a feel for what council members might be willing to do. Cynthia Brock, an alderperson who has been working on this issue but is not a member of the City Administration Committee, said that as we continue to see the impacts of climate change this problem will only get worse. “More severe weather events result in more rain, the lake levels are rising,” she said. “The fact is this land is basically at the water table. So when the lake goes up, the Hangar ends up under water. So yes, they made a lot of improvements, but as the water table rises, the water comes up through the floor.” Brock said in the immediate term that the Hangar is looking for assistance with flood insurance, and then in the longer term they have to figure out next steps to solve the issue. “Even if the theatre relocates, the building is still a city building at the gateway of the city,” Brock said. “We need to make decisions about the future of this building.” Committee chair Robert Cantelmo asked how long it would take to get a proposal for the study in front of the committee, but Thorne said it

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▶ Anniversary - 2022 marks 25 years of service for Catholic Charities of Tompkins Tioga, and officials are planning to recognize the anniversary with an array of fundraising efforts and events to celebrate. This includes a special cornhole tournament coming to Nichols this May, which will provide community members a fun, family-friendly event that

VOL.XLII / NO. 28 / March 2, 2022 Serving 47,125 readers week ly

was already ready. “The scope looked comprehensive and it was a fair price,” he said. However, he added, paying for the study would ultimately lead to more costs. “We have the $30,000 study. Depending on the complexity of the solution that’s picked, I imagine construction drawings will be between $50,000$100,000. And then construction, probably on the low end, will be a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Thorne said. “So what does the flood insurance cost? So what might be how you look at it.” Committee member Jeffrey Barken pointed out that if they get flood insurance and they’re flooding on an annual basis, premiums will continue to rise on the policy. City Comptroller Steve Thayer agreed, but said it doesn’t solve the root of the problem. “If it continues to flood and claims come in through that insurance, then the premiums would increase,” he said. “But the current cost or quote is something like $5,800 for the city to insure this. So it’s not a huge number, but again, that’s just insuring it. There’s an ongoing issue that we need to figure out at some point as well.” Vavra noted that there are city employees looking for ways to get grants to help with the funding and said that making it a historical building could help with funding sources as well. The committee wasn’t asked to make any decisions during this meeting, but did ask for more information at the next meeting to help further guide the process. -Ta n n e r H a r d i n g

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will also help Catholic Charities carry out its mission. “We are so thrilled to be celebrating 25 years of helping our neighbors in Tompkins and Tioga Counties,” sai Executive Director Renee Spear. “Serving our community is at the heart of everything we do at Catholic Charities, from providing struggling households with financial

assistance, to offering homeless women a safe place to stay, to cooking nutritious meals for our neighbors, to helping immigrants navigate the complexities of life in the United States. We are in the business of providing hope, and we are so grateful that we’ve been able to do this work for the last 25 years.”

Ma r ch

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