Council To Consider Future Use Of The Civic Auditorium

With the lease contract coming to an end in September, the City of Redding is taking another hard look at the Redding Civic Auditorium. The 50-year-old public facility is on a long term lease to Bethel Church and its entertainment and management arm, Advance Redding. The unusual arrangement was made during the depths of the recession, when a mountain of debt and a long list of maintenance needs was causing a hemorraghing of city funds. The church’s School of Supernatural Ministries has for the last 10 years used the auditorium on weekdays while various secular performances and other events prior to the pandemic generated revenue on evenings and weekends. In 2017 Advance Redding invested $120,000 worth of lighting and video projection equipment into the auditorium, bringing the total value of their improvements over the years to over $1 Million. The annual rent is around $750,000. The church will soon break ground on a new campus in Northeast Redding, so it’s not known how much longer they’ll have a use for the auditorium. A new long-term lease agreement will likely take a few months to cobble together. Tuesday the city council is expected to assign two of its members to the task.