Before the Keller Goes Dark
The labor case for the Portland State Performing Arts and Culture Center
Portland City Council will decide the fate of the city’s arts scene this summer in a pivotal decision that most are unaware of: should they shutter the seismically dangerous Keller Auditorium for a two-year rebuild or invest in a new, state-of-the-art Arts and Culture Center on the campus of Portland State University?
A small group of well-heeled property owners surrounding the Keller — the Halpern Group — have spent considerable treasure to advocate for the first option, while advocates for PSU’s proposed 3,000-seat complex range from Governor Tina Kotek to the Oregon Legislature to organized labor. PSU has already raised more than $137 million toward its vision of teaching spaces, a conference center and hotel, and the new large theater in what it is calling the Portland Arts and Culture Center, or PACC.
One thing both sides agree on is that the Keller Auditorium, built in 1917, cannot withstand a major earthquake. No one questions whether the Keller will close for seismic work; it will. The issue is what happens to the people whose livelihoods depend on it during the two years it is shut down.
That is the question Crossroads Consulting Services set out to answer in an economic impact analysis delivered to the City of Portland in May 2024. Commissioned through the City’s Office of Management and Finance, the report modeled a 24-month closure during fiscal years 2027 and 2028. In a debate that often drifts toward abstractions, this report is the clearest factual anchor. It deserves a larger place in the public discussion than it has gotten.
What it shows is sobering. In FY 2027, the closure would eliminate approximately 320 jobs supported by Keller operations and $20.5 million in regional labor income. In FY 2028, those figures rise to 336 jobs and $21.8 million in labor income. Over the two-year closure period, $42.3 million in labor income would disappear, along with $96.3 million in total economic output and approximately $5.1 million in local and state tax revenue. These are not aspirational projections about what some future arts investment might one day produce. They are conservative estimates, drawn from standard regional economic modeling, of what stops happening when a venue with $46.8 million in annual operating activity goes dark.
And those losses are not just lines on a spreadsheet. In FY 2028, the direct employment loss is 229 jobs: facility staff, stagehands organized through IATSE Local 28, musicians performing with touring orchestras, wardrobe workers, box office staff, and food and beverage workers serving audiences at intermission. Another 107 jobs would be lost indirectly or through induced effects: restaurant servers near the Keller whose Saturday-night tips depend on a show being in town, rideshare drivers, parking attendants, and suppliers tied to the facility’s operations. Crossroads explicitly names IATSE. Broadway Across America, the main vendor of this venue, warned of “the potential loss of jobs for members of IATSE and other staff associated with the Keller Auditorium” in its formal communication with the City.
Much of this turns on Broadway, the traveling company, which is the single largest source of the affected work. During fiscal years 2018 through 2023, Broadway accounted for 46 percent of Keller performances and 55 percent of total attendance, averaging approximately 177,000 annual Broadway attendees. According to Broadway Across America, more than half of those attendees come from the suburbs and beyond, and more than 70 percent are season subscribers. In a typical Portland season, six to eight touring shows run for as many as twelve weeks, with eight performances a week. Every one of those performances employs the IATSE crew, the touring musicians, and the facility staff who make the show possible.
If no successor venue is operating when the Keller closes, Portland will not simply put Broadway on hold for two years; it will lose it. Broadway Across America will move its Portland season to Seattle and San Francisco. Season subscribers, who make up most Broadway attendance, will spend their money elsewhere, as the Crossroads report predicts. Other users will move to other venues. Some may hesitate to come back even after construction ends if they see Portland as unreliable or uncertain. In other words, the damage would outlast the closure itself. Re-staffing the facility with skilled personnel becomes, in the report’s words, “a challenge.” The IATSE crews who have spent decades building technical expertise specific to Keller productions will either find other work in the region or relocate. Once that experience disperses, it does not snap back into place the day the doors reopen.
This is where the PACC matters most. If the Performing Arts and Culture Center is built and operating by the time the Keller closes for renovation, Broadway can move across the South Park Blocks to the PACC instead of across state lines to Seattle. The crews move with the touring schedule. Season subscribers keep their subscriptions. Musicians keep their gigs. Wardrobe staff keep their wages. Downtown restaurants keep their pre-show traffic. The labor income Crossroads projects as lost does not disappear because the work behind it continues.
Economic activity will propel the city’s resurgence, building on its robust and globally renowned arts and culture scene. PSU, which has lost 23 percent of its enrollment in recent years, would be able to capitalize on its new performing arts resource to attract students interested in both performance and back-of-the-house training.
A second labor benefit of the PACC option concerns construction. Because PSU is a public landowner, Oregon law requires that capital projects meet high-road construction standards, including prevailing wage requirements, the use of registered apprentices, and workforce equity protections. Over the life of the project, the construction phase is estimated to support roughly 2,000 construction jobs across the trades: laborers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, and operating engineers. Portland needs more work of that kind, not less, at a moment when the region’s broader construction pipeline has slowed. In fact, the PSU project is expected to stimulate a 10-year building renaissance, returning cranes to the skies over Portland.
That helps explain why organized labor is lining up behind the project. This is not generic civic boosterism or a reflexive institutional endorsement. It is a practical response to a specific decision with visible consequences for its members. They understand the Crossroads numbers because those numbers describe the workers they represent. The labor case for the PACC is the one these organizations have been making to the legislature and the city all along. Portland’s reputed pro-labor city councilors should prioritize these objectives as they weigh the decision before them.
Sooner or later, the Keller will close. Once renovated, it could be reopened as an intermediate-sized performance space, adding to a thriving cultural mecca. Meanwhile, however, the question is whether the workers who keep it running go dark with it, or move a short distance to a successor venue ready to take them in. The Crossroads analysis puts a price on those two outcomes. The PACC is what makes the better one possible.