Camden County could decide whether to take responsibility of the Scottish Rite Theater by the year’s end
The Collingswood Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit that runs the theater, might not survive the transition, officials say.
Camden County leaders say talks have slowly progressed, after months of public scrutiny, on what to do with a historic theater that has left Collingswood Borough footing its bills.
The Scottish Rite Theater, which hosts everything from rock bands to school district events to weddings, is one of the largest in South Jersey, seating up to 1,050 people.
Now, the county could decide by the end of the year whether to take responsibility of the theater to relieve Collingswood of the financial toll, Louis Cappelli Jr., director of the Camden County Board of Commissioners, told The Inquirer in a recent interview. It’s a goal that has been years in the making, Collingswood Commissioner Jim Maley has said at recent meetings.
That takeover would likely result in the dissolution of the current nonprofit running the theater, Cappelli said, but he’s not sure yet who would run the Scottish Rite and what would happen to its current employees.
“We’re still performing our due diligence on the Scottish Rite,” Cappelli told the Inquirer. “We’re having the building inspected to make sure there’s no landmines in there that would surprise us.”
The county is also completing an internal financial evaluation to determine whether an agreement with the borough would be feasible, Cappelli said.
Collingswood Borough has rented the property housing the theater for $1 annually from the Scottish Rite Freemasons for more than two decades. Borough officials and lawyers created a nonprofit, Collingswood Foundation for the Arts, in 1999 to run the property.
The borough has kept the theater running by loaning hundreds of thousands in annual operating expenses to the Collingswood Foundation for the Arts. At the end of each year, the foundation typically repays the borough with money made through ticket sales and weddings, Maley, who helped create the nonprofit two decades ago when he was Collingswood’s mayor, said in August.
But Collingswood officials say a post-pandemic slump, declining sales, and shifting wedding trends have left the nonprofit with no means of repaying the borough.
Many residents have expressed anger that they are paying to keep the Scottish Rite afloat.
“I can understand why they don’t want to bail out a building they don’t feel truly belongs to them,” Collingswood Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward said. “It’s not available in the way that the Senior Community Center is, like other public buildings, which is why stepping away ... is really attractive to me.”
A new arrangement
It’s unclear exactly what a new agreement to keep the Scottish Rite going would look like. Officials say a draft doesn’t exist yet, but Cappelli said the borough would have to assign Camden County its lease with the Scottish Rite Freemasons, which currently extends through 2092.
Camden County’s commissioners sponsor concerts at the theater frequently, and Cappelli said those events would continue to be “a no-brainer for us.” Solano-Ward said she would agree to the transition only if Collingswood residents can still use the space for community events or fundraisers.
Amy Henderson Riley, who serves on Collingswood’s board of commissioners with Solano-Ward and Maley, said she’s not against working with the county, but she wants to ensure that Collingswood gets something in return, especially when the borough’s school district has suffered from budget cuts in recent years.
“Can the borough have a dollar per ticket or 50 cents per ticket? We’re looking for money everywhere,” Henderson Riley said. “How do we create an arrangement that benefits the town?”
If the county is assigned the current lease, Cappelli said the Collingswood Foundation for the Arts would no longer run the Scottish Rite Theater or its adjoining ballroom. Instead, a new nonprofit, about which he offered no details, would take its place.
The Collingswood Foundation for the Arts has at least one full-time employee, Paula Lara, who serves as executive director, along with part-time bartenders, caterers, sales personnel, sound and lighting crews, and more. Cappelli said the county hasn’t made any decisions on whether Lara and her staff would stay at the Scottish Rite under a new agreement but said staffing changes are “part of what we are currently exploring.”
Lara did not return requests for comment.
The foundation, a longtime fixture in Collingswood, has been the subject of controversy in recent months over its nonprofit status. For the past five years, the foundation hasn’t filed its tax documents and lost its federal tax exempt status. Maley has previously said the pause on filing was a mistake, and that officials have since filed those documents. The foundation’s exemption hasn’t been reinstated by the IRS, at least not as of Wednesday.
The nonprofit holds the Scottish Rite’s special concessionaire permit, a $2,000 annual license allowing the venue to serve alcohol in a historically dry town (though that could change in November when Collingswood voters decide whether to lift its liquor license ban). Maley said at a borough meeting in October that the money made from alcohol sales helps keep the Scottish Rite running.
“The Foundation of the Arts could go away tomorrow. Happy to make it go away, happy to not have you all here yelling about it,” Maley said at the meeting. “But the reason why it can’t go away is because it’s what holds the concessionaires.”
‘It’s complicated’
At the borough’s recent meetings, residents have called into question whether the Scottish Rite should have received taxpayer dollars at all, because the Collingswood Foundation for the Arts is a private corporation with independent employees.
Henderson Riley said she’s been trying all summer to understand the decades-long relationship between the foundation and the borough by working with special counsel. On Oct. 5, after 10 weeks without answers, Henderson Riley proposed a resolution to appoint new lawyers to speed up the process. Her fellow commissioners didn’t vote to pass it.
Without a clear understanding of the foundation, Henderson Riley said she doesn’t feel comfortable making votes or decisions on the Scottish Rite, especially ones that give the nonprofit money. The commissioner said she previously voted to transfer money to the foundation without being told the money couldn’t be paid back.
“These are actions I took. If I had understood they wouldn’t be paid back, I wouldn’t have voted that way,” Henderson Riley said. “Taxes are going up. Everybody is worried about affordability, and Collingswood is just giving away money.”
Inquirer South Jersey
