Eight-and-a-half million dollars?
Make no mistake -- Theater in the Mist is a nice, little addition to the tourist area adjacent to the state park, the emphasis falling heavily on "little."
With about 40 seats in front of a 10-by-15-foot movie screen, the theater is dwarfed by the gift shop, quite possibly the largest in Niagara Falls, N.Y., through which tourists must enter and leave.
That's fine -- the whole point of attracting tourists is to ensure they leave with less money than when they arrived.
The 10-minute film they watch is also nice. The first half includes some spectacular aerial shots of the falls. The narrator tells audience members to put on the cardboard 3-D glasses issued upon entry. They're then treated to lifelike -- or as close to it as three-dimensional technicians have been able to come up with in the last 50 years -- views of such wonders as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids and a kid kissing a verrrrry pregnant woman's belly.
Oh, yeah. And a five-second shot of Niagara Falls.
After a few more 3-D images -- and the bubbles do seem to waft out over the crowd in one shot -- it's back out into the gift shop.
All in all, not a bad addition to a tourist experience that, beyond the overwhelming experience of the cataracts, includes the opportunity to play nine holes of one of the flattest courses in the history of miniature golf, purchase fatty snacks at remarkable mark-ups and gaze into the splendor of the AquaFalls hole.
The theater also beats heck out of what formerly occupied the building next to the Hard Rock Cafe in recent years -- nothing.
But.
Eight-and-a-half million dollars?
That's the price tag placed on the theater by David Cordish, the Baltimore developer famous there for his role in redeveloping that city's waterfront and infamous here for building, then squeezing the life out of, the Rainbow Centre Mall, before allowing it to rot for nearly three years.
Of that total, $2 million came from Albany via USA Niagara Development, the state-funded body charged with invigorating downtown on behalf of Gov. George Pataki.
USA Niagara officials appeared understandably relieved to have one of their projects open, given the criticism the agency has absorbed, including not a small amount on these pages, since setting up shop in Niagara Falls.
But.
Eight-and-a-half million dollars?
That figure takes on particular significance in light of the estimated cost of the biggest-ticket item on USA Niagara's shopping list -- turning the long-vacant Falls Street Faire into something called a high-tech conference center. The price tag on that ambitious project -- $17 million.
If Theater in the Mist represents what $8.5 million buys these days in the world of development, it's not too difficult, or too pleasant, to imagine what's going to pass for high-tech if USA Niagara meets its target of opening the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center's replacement by next spring. Green-screened Commodore 64 computers, ditto machines and Beta video players, anyone?
Cordish himself couldn't have been too proud of Theater in the Mist, as he didn't actually show up for the opening of the grand undertaking. To be fair, he did send a couple lackeys, one of whom looked disturbingly like "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff.
Maybe Cordish's absence was due to the abject failure to live up to the grand promises made by his organization and USA Niagara officials when Theater in the Mist was first announced -- moving seats, special effects and, first and foremost, a gigantic IMAX screen.
While the picture quality in the theater was good, the screen was more reminiscent of the one your driver's ed teacher used to display film classics like "Blood on the Highway."
Cordish's people have promised further improvements, including those moving seats and tossing water and sand at viewers at appropriate moments in the film. Those additions would surely draw personal-injury attorneys, if not souvenir-craving tourists, in droves. But Cordish's organization also promised to convert the Rainbow Centre into a "family entertainment complex" when it closed the entire mall, save the Off-Track Betting parlor.
That was on Sept. 30, 2000.
Last week's gala opening was notable mainly for yet another bravura performance by Mayor Irene Elia. While Lt. Gov. Mary Donahue offered the expected elaborate praise for her boss, and USA Niagara Executive Director Michael Wilton and other state politicos displayed an appropriate level of enthusiasm, Herroner bubbled to the brink of goofiness.
When Gov. Pataki announced the original casino compact with the Seneca Nation in 2001, she proclaimed, "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."
A year later, she teased the aforementioned West Mall mini-golf course and the vending carts surrounding it as "Disneyesque."
This time, before excessively celebrating the handful of service-wage jobs created, she avoided lifting lines from Mass and copyright infringement, instead leaping out of season to come up with "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."
Really.
Twice.
Aside from causing more than a few eyes to roll, that suggested this humbler-than-advertised development was some sort of gift.
Cordish has been squatting on some of the most valuable real estate in Niagara Falls for more than two decades. USA Niagara excels at news conferences, press releases and glossy publications praising its future accomplishments, but Theater in the Mist is the first project it has seen to completion. Sorry, but contrary to some of the rhetoric at last week's ribbon cutting, Seneca Niagara Casino and the Niagara Aerospace Museum didn't need the agency to open their doors.
Developers developing things, and taxpayer-funded development agencies helping them, is the way things are supposed to go down, not a cause for holiday-invoking elation.
Santa Claus, they ain't.
Hopefully, thousands will enjoy Theater in the Mist each tourist season.
It's just about a lock that most of them would never guess what the expansive souvenir shop and diminutive theater cost.
Eight-and-a-half million dollars.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 5 2003 |