Bank near agreement on theater
Citizens negotiating to buy naming rights for the Opera House
Citizens Bank is nearing a deal to put its name on the newly renovated Opera House in downtown Boston, according to people briefed on the talks.
The negotiations are not complete, but are expected to wrap up soon. The deal, if reached, would give Citizens a new and prominent platform in the arts and entertainment community to rival the presence of major competitors, such as Bank of America Corp. and TD Banknorth Inc.
A Citizens spokeswoman declined to comment on the discussions yesterday. Officials at Clear Channel Entertainment, which owns the Opera House, could not be reached to comment.
Clear Channel has been shopping for a corporate naming-rights sponsor for the Washington Street landmark for more than a year. Clear Channel first approached Citizens and other companies in December of 2003, proposing a deal worth about $8.5 million over 10 years. But it got no takers. The renewal of the naming-rights negotiations more than a year later likely means the price has dropped.
No details about either the possible price or the proposed new name for the Opera House were available yesterday.
Since it reopened in July after a more than $35 million renovation, the Opera House has booked shows that appeal to audiences beyond the theater-going elite, said Diane Brickley, a partner in Moulter/Brickley Associates, a sports and entertainment consulting firm. That crossover appeal may make the naming rights more desirable to Citizens, she said.
''It's a pristine facility, beautiful and grand," she said. ''But the content performed there is very mainstream."
Since opening, the Opera House featured the Walt Disney musical ''The Lion King," which ended in February. A re-staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, ''Phantom of the Opera," opens at the end of the month.
The deal would be one of several recent naming-rights agreements featuring local banks, which often are flush with cash and eager to spend it on visible sports and community events. TD Banknorth, based in Maine, agreed this month to a $6 million-a-year deal to put its name on the FleetCenter, home of the Boston Celtics and Bruins. Citizens recently paid $57.5 million over 25 years to name the new Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, plus $37.5 million to be the only financial services company allowed to have ads during games.
In the Opera House deal, Sovereign Bancorp also looked at naming rights to the theater last year but decided against it.
Clear Channel has aggressively looked to sell the naming rights for many of its properties, including Boston's Bank of America Pavilion, formerly the FleetBoston Pavilion, and the Tweeter Center.
Citizens, based in Providence, is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland. It is now the second-largest bank in New England, and it has been expanding rapidly.
But Citizens' ads still describe it as a local bank, and The Opera House sponsorship would fit into that model. In Massachusetts, Citizens already sponsors a variety of sports and cultural groups, including the Celtics, the Boston Children's Museum, and the Dreams of Freedom Museum.
Opened in 1928, the lavish Opera House -- then called the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre -- once hosted some of the best vaudeville shows of the century. Its founders imported French doors, hand-blown chandeliers, and Italian marble fireplaces.
But the theater fell into disrepair, and in the mid-1990s it was sold to Theater Management Group, which was later bought by Clear Channel Entertainment. After a protracted battle with neighbors of the theater, Clear Channel began renovations in November 2002.
Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com; Carol Beggy at cbeggy@globe.com. 