Images courtesy of the Partnership for the Performing Arts
“OFIATC –Our future is at the center,” Nick Rail says, using a tagline the Partnership for the Performing Arts is coining for its major project — the Wild Rivers Performing Arts and Civic Center.
Rail has another tagline: “Our future is only as good as the opportunities we provide for our youth.”
Since Rail founded the Partnership for the Performing Arts in 2021, the nonprofit organization has supported the arts and arts education in Del Norte and Curry Counties. Through school district-wide instrument donations, the establishment of a high school instrument repair class, a yearly concert series, and consistent philanthropy towards the arts and local organizations, the nonprofit’s primary goal is to serve youth and provide meaningful artistic experiences to the community.
The facility’s designs are now before the California Division of the State Architect for approval, Rail told Redwood Voice Community News.
The facility will be built at Del Norte High School near Mike Whalen Field.
PPA has secured $6 million of its $70 million goal for this project so far. They plan to begin construction in the spring of 2028 and open doors in the fall of 2030.
About 100 Del Norte and Curry County community members were able to get a first look at 3D renderings of the Wild Rivers Performing Arts and Civic Center on Sept. 30. This included viewing a three-dimensional walkthrough of the building. Attendees included representatives from the local school district as well as city and county elected officials, Rail said.
“That is exactly what we wanted,” Rail said.
The meeting focused on both the specific design of the facility as well as how it would work. Others continue to wonder how it will be paid for and who will be instrumental in raising the money necessary to get it built. It was also a chance for people to become more involved in the PPA, Rail said.
Rail began spearheading efforts to build a performing arts center in Del Norte County because, to him, joining band as a Redwood Elementary School student in the late 50s “put the color on my canvas for life.”
From his experience in the Del Norte High School band and through his university years, Rail decided to pursue a career in music retail. He would go on to operate his own chain of music stores in Southern California until he sold his business in 2019.
“When I sold the business in 2019, and had this nice big check that was all mine, I talked to my wife Lisa, and we agreed in about five minutes [that] we no longer owned any of that money,” Rail told Redwood Voice. “We had given it to what’s called a donor-advised fund, which means we can direct where the money goes, but we can no longer put it back into our checking account. We pledged the entire amount to support the performing arts in public education– up in the area where opportunity had come to me at Redwood, back in 1959.”
Rail sought input from his former student and employee, Del Norte High School band director Dan Sedgwick, and Sedgwick’s predecessor, Christie Lynn Rust, on what the music department needed. For Rust, the most prominent need was a place to perform, Rail said.
The PPA led the effort to rehabilitate the Crescent Elk Middle School auditorium in 2022. The auditorium was originally built in 1929 and seats 385 people. Though the facility is the largest “concert-appropriate” venue for Del Norte and Curry counties, Rail says the stage is undersized even for a middle school.
“There is a great need for a performing arts and civic center,” he said.
The theater inside the Wild Rivers Performing Arts and Civic Center will be seven times the size of the one at Crescent Elk, Rail said. It will seat 800 people. It will also include green rooms, a conference room and a lobby that can seat up to 250 people.
The facility is slated to go in the gravel parking lot at Del Norte High School, Rail said. The tennis courts will be removed, he said, and would be installed near the Doris Whalen Dance Studio.
Both counties will be able to bring in performing groups, theatre groups and lecturers to the area, Rail said. The center can also host town hall meetings, conferences, corporate retreats, wedding receptions and graduations.
The center will also serve as an emergency meeting place within Crescent City limits that is outside of the tsunami zone, Rail said. He noted that with the Crescent City Fire and Rescue station, Sutter Coast Hospital, Del Norte High School and the Del Norte Unified School District office, Washington Boulevard has become an emergency services corridor.
“The fact that the (performing arts) center can be a meeting place in times of emergency is the final piece of the puzzle to keep our community safe,” Rail said.
With the renovations of Beachfront Park and the Crescent City Cultural Center, and the redesign of downtown, Rail hopes that the performing arts center, cultural center, and downtown businesses can benefit from each other. He noted, citing a University of California Davis Cooperative Extension study, that just the musical performances alone will generate at least $1.9 million for the community and its hospitality industry.
According to Rail, most of the funding paying for the performing arts and civic center will come from private foundations and state and federal entities. In 2022, for example, California State Sen. Mike McGuire awarded a $2.5 million grant to the Partnership for the Performing Arts. The organization used the money to hire the architects who designed the performing arts center, Rail said.
The Partnership for the Performing Arts also hired someone with experience securing state and federal grants as well as donations from private foundations, Rail said. That person’s job is to determine where the organization will be most successful when it comes to securing those contributions, he said.
“That’s a really big deal. It means that our capital campaign and fundraising efforts will be as efficient as they possibly can,” Rail told Redwood Voice.
The Partnership for the Performing Arts’s next production in its 2026-27 concert series is on Nov. 15, featuring The Bayberry String Quartet. The concert will be held at 3 p.m. in the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Brookings, 102 Park Avenue.
For tickets, to view renderings of the performing arts center, and to learn more about the PPA’s efforts, visit ppadelnorte.org.
