Park City fest looking up

PARK CITY — When Pam Crowe-Weisberg agreed to become the executive director of the Kimball Arts Center 2 1/2 years ago, she knew it had a grim past.

Plagued by money problems, the visual-arts center in the heart of Park City was ready to close its doors. Even the center's only fund-raiser, the popular Main Street Park City Kimball Arts Festival, was running in the red. But since Crowe-Weisberg came in and made sweeping changes, the center has transformed itself.

"The arts festival was in a really bad position," she said. "But I like challenges. And this was a huge challenge."

Coming from the high-end New York fashion industry, Crowe-Weisberg looks at the nonprofit arts center as a business. Last year, she added a second fund-raiser, the Kimball Art Auction and Gala, as a kickoff for the arts festival.

The Kimball is also applying for more grants. A new staff member who focuses on educational programming has brought classes, lectures and school tours to a new level. And, Crowe-Weisberg said, she holds her staff accountable.

"We've turned it around, basically," she said of Kimball's 12-member staff. "And we're growing and expanding constantly."

Surrounded by over 100 colorful paintings and bronze statues worth about $300,000, Crowe-Weisberg was surprisingly calm Thursday, hours before the auction and gala.

"I'm doing this not because I had to, but because I believe in visual arts," she said. "I'm very serious and very passionate about this."

Crowe-Weisberg has big goals for the center, located on 638 Park Ave. She hopes it can be the premiere arts center for the Western region.

The arts festival features 220 artists and attracts more than 40,000 tourists. That translates to about $22,000 in sales-tax revenue for Park City.

For the past two years, the city has contributed about $45,000 through in-kind city services to the festival, like extra bus routes and security, as well as $10,000 from the parking fees the city collects during the event.

Those fee waivers were intended "to get them up on their feet," said Max Paap, the city's special-events coordinator. "We certainly view the arts highly in Park City."