Bay St. Theatre's goal for possible move

The Bay Street Theatre -- which has made its home on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor for 20 years -- has given itself a 60-day deadline to find a new home. Or, at least, to find out where the most likely place for a new home will be.

The 299-seat Equity theater brings 30,000 people a year to downtown Sag Harbor. Even with sellout crowds, however, it loses $1 million a year because of high operating expenses. In addition, its lease runs out in May 2013 and the theater cannot get a long-term renewal, which it considers important in trying to land private and government grants.

The theater, which employs actors registered with the Actors' Equity Association, has been looking at alternate sites for more than a year but will run its regular 2012 season in Sag Harbor. What happens in 2013 will depend on the new location, and how long it takes to get the site ready. "We'll set up a tent if we have to," Bay Street spokesman Tim Kofahl said.

Options mentioned by Bay Street officials at a community forum last week included a joint operating agreement with the Sag Harbor school district on a new facility, building a new theater on the lot where the old LIPA natural gas holding tank stood near the harbor, and moving to the new industrial park being built in Westhampton by Gabreski Airport.

Bay Street officials say the most promising idea in some ways is to move into the old Parrish Art Museum property in Southampton Village; the museum is moving to a new, larger and more modern location in Water Mill.

None of the solutions is perfect, executive director Tracy Mitchell said, while acknowledging the cost of moving to those alternate locations has not been fully researched.

"We want people to understand we are not going to sit around for six months or a year and wait for people to come and talk to us. We have to do something, and now is the time," she said.

Not having a permanent home creates all sorts of problems for Bay Street. The theater spends $150,000 to $200,000 a year just to provide housing for its Equity actors, and has looked at buying a motel to cut those costs. But Mitchell said it makes no sense to acquire a motel unless the theater knows where it will be operating five or 10 years from now.

Some proposals being looked at would require zoning changes or environmental reviews. Sag Harbor school officials said their discussions with Bay Street to jointly run a new theater -- the current auditorium at the high school is too small -- are in a preliminary stage, and would require careful study of possible scheduling conflicts.

Mitchell said that if nothing else comes through, the theater has the option to renew its lease for three more years. "But that's just kicking the can down the road," she said.