PORT TOWNSEND — Longtime Centrum Executive Director Rob Birman will transition to a new role after the organization signed a long-term lease agreement with the Washington State Parks Commission, ensuring Centrum’s future at historic Fort Worden State Park.
The agreement follows a year of uncertainty at Fort Worden after the park’s management entered receivership prior to the Fort Worden Public Development Authority’s (PDA’s) dissolution.
Birman called the agreement a meaningful continuation of the public-private partnership approaches that drew him to Centrum in the first place.
“I actually moved here to the Northwest because of the concept of the PDA,” Birman said. “When I started looking into the job, I was stunned at the imagination required to blend public and private funding to fix the fort.”
Birman will step into a new role focusing on capital fundraising, but he will remain executive director until a nationwide search to fill the position is complete. The search could take as long as eight months, Birman said.
Along with a 35-year lease — which includes the responsibilities of managing stewardship and programming for 14 campus buildings — Centrum will have the option for a second 35-year lease when the first concludes.
The length of the lease, which required approval from the parks commission, was chosen to reflect the extent of the capital work Centrum plans to take on moving forward.
Among the buildings to be managed by Centrum are the 280-seat Wheeler Theater and the 1,200-seat McCurdy Pavilion. Centrum also will oversee use of the spaces for third-party groups and use the spaces for its own workshops and performances.
Another feature of the agreement between Centrum and State Parks is that Centrum will raise capital for the renovation of several buildings, and it will receive credit against future rent payments. Long-term improvements made to the buildings could go toward 80 percent of rent, Birman said.
“This is a win-win for State Parks and Washington state,” said Chris Holm, Fort Worden campus business manager for Washington State Parks, in a news release. “It retains Centrum as the anchor tenant of Fort Worden and helps us continue to make improvements to these well-loved and historical buildings that tell an important part of our state’s history – many of them date back to the early 1900s. Centrum has been a great partner for decades and the organization is an important part of the Port Townsend and Jefferson County community.”
Birman noted that other property tenants are currently negotiating similar lease agreements, which would allow for facility upgrades to be traded for rent credit, but that other tenants likely would sign shorter leases.
Birman, who has directed the organization for 14 years, will lead it in completing its fundraising and renovation projects as capital projects director.
“This place is really complicated,” Birman said. “These are historic buildings, many of them, so we have a lot of hoops to jump through with (the state departments of) Ecology and Archaeology and permitting.”
The organization has a rough outline for facilities maintenance and renovation but will refine its approach through a facilities master plan, expected to be completed this year.
“We have a rough plan,” Birman said. “We’re working on a facilities master plan now, which will be the refined plan, and that will be a clear articulation of which buildings are in what priority order for us.”
Fundraising and priority planning benefit from a campus maintenance assessment conducted by MENG Analysis of Seattle in 2021.
“They gave me an assessment of the maintenance needs of those buildings for the next 20 years,” Birman said. “That was about $30 million in observable maintenance needs.”
The approximately $30 million in observable need took 19 buildings— more than those under Centrum’s direct management — into consideration. Adjusted for inflation, that figure is closer to $35 million today, Birman said.
Current and near-term maintenance projects include improvements to Wheeler Theater, McCurdy Pavilion and a two-year, $4 million renovation of Building 205.
Centrum began building a facilities fund in 2022, when then-Public Development Authority Executive Director David Timmons introduced a rent model to allow tenants to trade facility upkeep for rent.
“We have a little over $12 million in commitments to that fund,” Birman said. “Some of that is in matching funds, and I’ve got another $2 million in grant requests that are pending right now.”
Birman also credited State Parks for its collaborative approach during a period of uncertainty at Fort Worden.
“The hallmark of the last year, in my opinion, is creativity,” Birman said. “When I use that word, I’m actually referring to the Washington State Park Commission, because they came to the table during the crisis and looked for creative ways to write the next chapter for this property.”
Even beyond the lease, Birman referred to the last year, during which Centrum extended well beyond its typical role, standing up a food service and operating hospitality for its workshop participants. Parks was supportive of Centrum in preventing a major disruption during the stopgap, Birman said.
Birman also praised the agency’s ongoing maintenance work at the campus.
Birman’s tenure as executive director has seen Centrum nearly double its annual budget to $5.1 million, and its endowment fund has multiplied by 900 percent to $1.1 million, according to a Centrum news release.
________
Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
