Other than a couple of Indiana Department of Natural Resources work trucks parked in the lot, all appeared quiet last week at the Indiana Dunes State Park pavilion.
The chain link fence that surrounded the facility earlier this year was gone Friday, and there was no sign of work going on inside or outside as speculation continues over whether Pavilion Partners, which is renovating the region landmark in a public-private partnership with the DNR, will appeal a state board's Oct. 6 decision to uphold the Porter County Alcoholic Beverage Commission's denial of a liquor permit.
Deb Butterfield, spokeswoman for Pavilion Partners, declined to comment in an email on whether work at the pavilion is continuing as the group, led by Valparaiso businessman Chuck Williams, decides what to do next. Pavilion Partners has until Oct. 21 to file an appeal with the state's Alcohol and Tobacco Commission.
She also would not comment on what factors Pavilion Partners is considering as it moves forward, but she was willing to provide an update on the expense to Pavilion Partners and the work done so far.
"Taking into account the architectural, legal and engineering fees, along with construction and demolition, Pavilion Partners has invested well over $1 million to date," including the construction of a comfort station, Butterfield said in her email. "The demolition inside the pavilion is substantially complete so the building is mostly a shell at this point. The elevator shaft has been constructed but the elevator itself has not been installed."
The DNR is committed to the project and that has not changed despite the outcome of the hearing before the alcohol board, Dan Bortner, director of the DNR's Division of State Parks and Reservoirs, said in an email.
Under the terms of the lease, which was signed in late February, Pavilion Partners can break off the arrangement "as a result of … no longer being able to sell alcohol" and would be compensated for its investment in the completed work."
"The contract does have a provision that allows Pavilion Partners that option under certain circumstances but we are way too early in the process to speculate where that might end up," Bortner said in his email.
The 35-year-lease, with the option of two 15-year extensions, stipulates that Pavilion Partners will pay DNR $18,000 each year. The lease, which specifies the construction of a banquet center, notes that two years after the renovated pavilion is complete, Pavilion Partners will start paying the DNR 2 percent of its revenue from that facility, including from alcohol sales. The terms are the same starting two years after the completion of the banquet center.
Pavilion Partners is investing $6 million in the project, according to the lease, which entails a new comfort station, completed over the summer; the gutting and renovation of the pavilion; and a 17,000-square-foot banquet and conference facility adjacent to the pavilion, which along with the request for the liquor license has drawn criticism.
Representatives from Pavilion Partners and Indiana Dunes Tourism have said that the project cannot be financially successful without a liquor license. Indiana Dunes State Park is the only park in the state system with an outright ban on alcohol. That came about in 1990 because rival gangs from Chicago were coming to the beach to drink and fight.
Chesterton attorney Michael Sawyier represented another group, Dunes Pavilion Renaissance, which put together a proposal to renovate the pavilion. In addition to renting kayaks and other outdoor gear, the plans included a fine dining restaurant on the second floor of the pavilion, as do Pavilion Partners' plans.
That plan also included a liquor license.
"We're talking about a national-class restaurant. You're not going to get a national-class restaurant there without a liquor license," he said. "I don't know a liquor license is necessary for there to be any sort of restaurant upstairs but for there to be a really excellent restaurant that would produce revenue that would pay for the build-out, sure, you need a liquor license."
Whether Renaissance would have faced the same scrutiny in an application for a liquor license — Pavilion Partners' application bounced between the local and state boards for much of the summer before a Sept. 10 local hearing drew 520 people to the Expo Center — Sawyier can't say for sure.
"Our proposal was straightforward and all from the community and responsive to community concerns," he said. The group involved in the project had proposed forming as a not-for-profit as well. "I think we might have been cut a little slack, but I don't know."
Renaissance wouldn't have proposed a high-class restaurant with a liquor license if those involved thought it was a bad thing, said Sawyier, who attended the hearing at the Expo Center. "Nevertheless, there were some good arguments against having liquor at the park and some objections hadn't occurred to us when we were doing the plans."
He suggested a complex of art studios for the second floor of the pavilion would be ideal.
"That would at least minimize the build-out cost. But, of course, that use — whatever its other benefits to the community and the region — would do very little to put money in the DNR's pocket," he said.
Dunes Action, the grass-roots organization that has opposed both Pavilion Partners' plans for a banquet center and a liquor license but not the pavilion's renovation, is also considering what might go on the second floor of the pavilion if Pavilion Partners pulls out.
Regardless of an appeal, Dunes Action would like to offer a workshop for the community to come together and share its ideas, and perhaps find another way to fund the pavilion's rebirth, maybe through crowdfunding, "so it's truly designed by the people and owned by the people," said Desi Robertson, the organization's co-founder.
In the meantime, Dunes Action has been preparing since the Sept. 10 hearing for the possibility that Pavilion Partners would appeal the decision on the liquor license. Also still not resolved, Robertson said, was the matter of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, which prohibits the conversion of land acquired with money from the fund to uses other than public outdoor recreation.
"Who knows what Pavilion Partners is thinking, but we have to think they are weighing their options and if it's worth it to push for an appeal," she said, adding Dunes Action has been getting ready in case Pavilion Partners ends the lease. "Since the beginning we've talked about alternatives."