A Long Run is Ending: Rhodes will leave his imprint on city's image and its arts

Milton Rhodes, whose second stint as head of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County has brought the multimillion-dollar transformation of the Sawtooth Center into a venue for performances as well as visual art, says he will step down next fall.

And council officials say they've formed a committee to search across the country for his replacement -- somebody who, ideally, will be working for the council by Oct. 1.

News of these two developments comes as Rhodes' top priority -- a $26 million comprehensive campaign -- nears completion.

The campaign's goals have included boosting annual fund-drive amounts, transforming the Sawtooth Building into the Downtown Center for the Arts, creating an endowment for the center's upkeep and launching an effort to market Winston-Salem as "The City of Arts and Innovation."

"I did what they wanted me to do when I came in," said Rhodes, who will be 65 when he participates in ceremonies marking the center's opening in September and leaves the council shortly thereafter.

"It's a good, logical time to make a transition," he said. "It's a good time to see what's next…. I just don't what (that) is yet." Rhodes did say, however, that he and his wife, Mattie, will remain in Winston-Salem after he leaves the council.

Rhodes was the council's president and chief executive from 1971 until 1985. After holding various arts positions elsewhere, he became the council's president again in 2004.

Peggy Joines and Dara Folan will lead the 17-person committee to search for Rhodes' replacement.

Joines said that the council had flourished under Rhodes' leadership.

"We not only have raised more money and made more awards through the annual grant process, but we have increased substantially our advocacy role," she said. "When you think of the arts in North Carolina, you have to think of Winston-Salem, ‘The City of Arts and Innovation,' and that is largely due to the determination and vision of Milton Rhodes."

Rhodes stressed that the council must still raise $3.25 million in the third and final phase of the comprehensive campaign.

"I'm confident that funds will be raised during 2010," Rhodes said. Leading that effort will be Richard Noll, the chief executive of Hanesbrands Inc., and Mike Ernst, the company's senior vice president and general manager of direct-to-consumer businesses.

When completed, the Downtown Center for the Arts will feature a new multi-use performance venue called Hanesbrands Theatre. The center's Sawtooth renovations will include reconfiguring galleries, performance spaces and visual-arts classrooms for the Sawtooth School for Visual Art.

Rhodes described a number of items, outside the campaign's $26 million, for which he is hoping to secure funding before the center opens. These include projection equipment for movies in the center's Hanesbrands Theatre and an LED screen for corporate meetings in a central area of the center known as Reynolds Place. These additional items will cost about $300,000.

Another still-unresolved issue is what to do with three lots on which the former offices of the Chamber of Commerce and United Way once stood, near the Arts Council Theatre. The lots take up 4.2 acres. Rhodes said that a drugstore has expressed interest in purchasing one of the lots and will let the council know of its intentions in February. The other lots are for sale, Rhodes said.

"That money will go into paying the demolition of the building and the storm-water projections for other property there," he said. "We're hoping there's going to be some money with revitalizing (the Arts Council Theatre) and endowing (it)."

Both Joines and Folan expressed confidence that the council would find the right person to succeed Rhodes, who made $159,500 in 2007, according to the most recent public tax information available.

The search committee has retained Martin Godwin of The McAulay Firm of Charlotte to assist in a national search for Rhodes' successor. The McAulay firm assisted in the council's last two searches for a president and chief executive, including the one that brought Rhodes back to Winston-Salem.

"We've got a good process in place," Folan said. "We've got a lot of time and the right people to take the time and find the right person."

kkeuffel@wsjournal.com


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The Arts Council fund

The $26 million fund that Milton Rhodes has helped collect for the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County will be used in various ways. There is still $3.25 million to be raised to complete the overall campaign:

• $11 MILLION: Transforming the Sawtooth building into a downtown arts center, including the new Hanesbrands Theatre.

• $5 MILLION: For an endowment to sustain the center and theater.

• $1 MILLION: For a three-year effort to promote Winston-Salem as the "City of the Arts and Innovation'' to visitors and potential employers.

• $9 MILLION: For three fundraising drives that began in 2008.