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Halloween last year was a turning point in Zachary Mannheimer and Matthew McIver’s dream of creating a permanent home for the Subjective Theatre Company and other arts groups in Des Moines.

They were installing a 15,000-square-foot walking tour in an old warehouse building in the East Village for Subjective’s “End of the World” production and found out that the building was not up to code. The city would likely have shut down the whole production had a core group of people not stayed up until 4 a.m. the night before making changes.

That Thursday morning, McIver said, he thought the event “could very well be our worst disaster, and that Thursday night, when it actually happened, I felt like it was our greatest success.”

The event not only solidified Subjective’s presence in Des Moines, but also solidified plans that were already in motion for the Des Moines Social Club (DMSC) (under Mannheimer and McIver’s leadership as well) to transform a building in the Western Gateway corridor into an arts and cultural center. It brought together a core group of volunteers to lead the project, and later a board of directors formed primarily with emerging business leaders that would provide needed expertise on renovating the building, fund raising, event planning and branding.

At last, after rolling into town in September 2007 from New York City with a lofty vision for a cultural center in downtown Des Moines, Mannehimer said, “I think we’ve proven to the community that we have staying power.”

But he and McIver also know there is a long road ahead toward building a permanent location. It involves a lot of work to prepare the theater for its opening performance this week, building a critical mass of followers who support the project this year and raising $200,000 by this fall to cover another one-year lease on the building and hire staff, before starting a $4 million to $6 million capital campaign to buy the building and fully renovate it.

Words such as “creative class” and “brain drain” are used in their argument that this project is essential to attracting and retaining young professionals in Des Moines. Mannheimer and McIver also say it’s an added attraction to the Western Gateway corridor, which will soon be home to a $30 million sculpture garden and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s headquarters.

“It’s that ability for those groups to mix, where you go into the coffee shop and the person who’s behind you in line has their art on the wall but you’re going to your job at Principal (Financial Group Inc.),” McIver said. “When those worlds start mixing together is when you get a vibrant art scene and a vibrant town that attracts young people rather than shipping them out.”

Grassroots to foundation

The concept of blending emerging artists with business executives is already proving possible in the formation of DMSC’s staff and board of directors.

A 21-member staff of mostly young artists is providing volunteer support in areas such as theater production and marketing, but the board is made up primarily of business leaders.

People such as Jeff Fleming, director of the Des Moines Art Center, Suku Radia, CEO of Bankers Trust Co., and Michael Mayor, a Tony Award-winning director in New York City, are advising the project. Meanwhile, more than 100 volunteers called through online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have shown up to work six hours every Saturday for the past two months.

“What we keep realizing is people want this,” Mannheimer said. “They want this thing to work.”

“And they don’t just want it,” McIver added. “They work for it.”

DMSC started out with $200,000 in donations, mostly from the Kruidenier Foundation, which allowed it to lease the old Architectural Salvage building at 1408 Locust St. from developer Jack Hatch at a greatly reduced price and pay Mannheimer and McIver’s salaries.

Efforts to renovate the building have largely come from time and service donations, including $20,000 in pro-bono architecture work from Mark Seabold of Shive-Hattery Inc. Board members such as Charlie Dunn, project manager at Venter Spooner Inc., Aaron Hyde, an associate at Ferguson Commercial Real Estate Services, and Pete McRoberts, deputy press secretary for the governor’s office, also have lent their skills. CitiMortgage donated all of the furniture, including 134 swivel chairs, when it moved out of its Walnut Street offices.

The building DMSC inherited was a wreck after the Barack Obama campaign cleared out, leaving a lot of stuff behind. Before the Obama campaign came in, Hatch had planned to turn the building into condominiums but changed his mind after the project failed to receive historic tax credits for architectural significance. Having DMSC use the space, even though the rent just covers the mortgage and utilities, is a benefit for Hatch’s development group while it applies for a historic designation. Plus, Hatch has helped advise Mannheimer on the project since the latter moved to Des Moines.

“It’s a perfect site for them and it certainly was a site that the value was much higher than they could have ever been able to afford, so it fits both their opportunity and ours,” Hatch said, adding that whether DMSC will buy the building has not been determined.

One step at a time

The current building “is a miniature version of what we hope to be in five years’ time, a full self-sufficient nonprofit organization,” Mannheimer said, standing in the middle of an open room, surrounded by debris, construction tools and tables and chairs.

The theater, a large black room tucked in the back of the building, will host its first performance this week. The theater will have no fixed stage, but rather 32 black boxes that can be situated and stacked where needed. The space, which holds 200 people seated or 400 standing, also will be rented out for weddings, business meetings, a wrestling match every third Friday of the month and possibly barn dancing.

“This is not our space,” Mannheimer said. “It’s a space. There’s nothing like it in Des Moines. We want it to be used by every art group.”

A green wall off to one side can be used for making films, with the possibility for the entire theater to be rented out as a holding room for productions. A warehouse door in back allows trucks to pull up to the door.

The rest of the first floor will have an art gallery, a lounge lobby, a bar with two indoor bocce ball courts and classrooms. The goal is to have revenues from the bar, classes, art sales and room rentals go toward supporting the theatrical productions so that no tickets for shows are priced above $20 and DMSC is a self-supporting nonprofit.

If it raises enough funds, DMSC would like to purchase the building and renovate the upper two floors, add more paid staff and have the building utilized at all hours of the day. But, McIver said, this is a “hugely ambitious model of a performing arts venue and we understand it’s a practical town and we’re going to roll it out step by step.”

A few snags

As actors from New York City, Mannheimer and McIver are self-taught businessmen, often learning the hard way. This includes working with the city on meeting building code requirements. After the last-minute effort to pull off the Halloween performance, Mannheimer and McIver have spent many hours working with the city staff to make sure their building is up to code.

“The city has been very gracious and has worked extremely well with us,” Mannheimer said.

“Patience is a great word,” McIver added.

Though plans examiner Cody Christiansen said the process has been typical for a group converting an office/warehouse building into a theater/bar, DMSC has had to make some unexpected investments in new bathrooms and exits to increase occupancy capacity to 400.

Another challenge has been working with a coalition of art groups known as Visual & Performing Arts Des Moines (VPArts), which had a similar vision for a cultural center and was even looking at the same building as DMSC. After intense competition between the groups, the members sat down to talk about the similarities in their visions and how they can collaborate in the future. But nothing definite has been determined yet.

Kent Newman, head of the Iowa Motion Picture Association, which is a member of VPArts, said VPArts is working on plans to construct a $5 million building downtown that could house the offices of several art groups as well as provide a theater, classrooms and other amenities.

Meanwhile, DMSC is preparing for its first show this Wednesday: “R.U.R.,” which is about artificial intelligence taking over the world. This is a testament to the organization’s efforts to bring people out of the online social networks and into a physical space.

“For the first time ever in our existence as an organization going on 10 years now,” Mannheimer said, “we have a physical location we can call home.”