A comment made by Mayor Lovely Warren after a reporter asked her about Tom Golisano’s $25 million pledge for a Rochester Performing Arts Center has raised eyebrows in the community.
When News 10 NBC reporter Berkley Brean asked the Mayor about it after a news conference today, he asked if Golisano weren’t like a modern day George Eastman….and then he asked if the city wouldn’t have said “yes” 85 years ago if George Eastman had offered a comparable sum. Here’s
what Mayor Warren had to say:
“85 years ago, if George Eastman had said that, he would have built the whole thing. The cost of the Performing Arts Center is $80, so $25 million is not enough to build the whole facility. If Tom Golisano came and said ‘listen, I want a performing arts center in downtown Rochester. Here’s a check for $85 million,’ I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be having this discussion today.”
The Rochester Broadway Theater League got the Golisano Grant and 
would like to see the theater developed on Midtown Parcel 5 downtown. The Group’s CEO, Arnie Rothschild, says he called Tom Golisano in Florida and quoted the mayor’s comment to him. He says Golisano laughed, then said in the past he would have responded. Now he just goes and plays golf.
As Arnie Rothschild said earlier this week, the plan would be for the RBTL to raise $15 million through a capital campaign, and seek $45 million more from the governor’s office and state legislature discretionary funds.
City Hall is thought to favor a rival proposal for Parcel 5: a $30 million, 14 story condo and commercial tower comparable to the renovated Midtown Tower across the street.