The city of Carmel announces the Forest Theater will not reopen this summer, but in 2016.

The city of Carmel announced today that the Forest Theater, currently undergoing renovations for code violations and upgrades, will not open this year as was originally planned.

The reason, according to the city's press release, "the expected length of preparing construction documents and the construction period, but also to make allowances for inclement weather in the spring."

The decision was made Monday when representatives from the theater's primary user groups, Pacific Repertory Theatre and the Forest Theater Guild, got to look at the updated construction schedule in the office of city project manager Andy Vanderford. An agreement was reached by the theater companies to postpone in the interest of getting the work "done right."

That wording comes from PacRep founder and executive director Stephen Moorer, who has been campaigning to pause the work being done by the architect, Chris Wasney of Cody Andersen Wasney, in order to reconsider the way the work was proceeding.

"One thing we've been focusing on in the city council meetings is the location of handicap parking turnaround," Moorer told the Weekly last December. "Right now it's designed right where the concession lines are. We don't want to see it there. We've suggested where it should end up. So far, without any master plan, those decisions are subject to making mistakes."

Ken Cusson, local actor, director, founder of Saltshaker Theater and former president of the Monterey County Theater Alliance, is disabled and expressed big concerns about the architect's ADA compliance plan.

"I'm not convinced the way they [were] going about it is the best way," he says. "It's plain demeaning to have to walk in front of the stage and the whole audience to get to the bathroom. It's rough."

There were other issues in contention. The project was slated to proceed in two phases, at a cost of $2 million, with the first phase addressing the red tag issues and ADA compliance and the second upgrading concessions, parking, lighting, box office and other improvements.

"What the council wants to see is what Phase 2 looks like before we get into Phase 1 so we don't have to rip out work [later]," says Carmel mayor Jason Burnett.

"It's so [the city] doesn't make any major investments in remodels that have to be ripped out because it doesn't line up with the master plan," Moorer says. "Normally you do a master plan first, then do the first stuff that has to be done to lift the red tag. Because of the time crunch, it's gone ass-backwards."

So the new deadline of 2016 allows the city to avoid $200,000 in additional cost for "accelerated construction."

“Everyone wanted the theater to be open as early as possible," Moorer said in the official press release, "and everyone tried to do that, but when you’re confronted with an immediate closure you simply have to have the time to explore all the options and ramifications before you jump into something."

Because a show needs a 6-week run to recoup and begin to make money, the prospect of putting on an abbreviated run of the previously slated production of The Wizard of Oz was worse than not putting it on at all.

"That show would cost almost $100,00," he says, "and there's no way to recoup that unless we have five, six weeks. Plus, it's a lot of work for everyone, to do all that work and only perform for a weekend of two is not fair to anybody."

Walt DeFaria of the Forest Theater Foundation said in the press release, "I’ve always felt that 2016 was when it should happen. We’ll be able to give the public a much improved Forest Theater.”

The city's statement went on to add that there will now be more time for contractors to bid on the work and reduce the "number of change orders which are always expensive," according to city administrator Doug Schmitz.

"We want to rebuild the theater," he continues, "so it withstands regular usage and the elements which come with time and age so that performances decades from now will be on the solid and lasting work undertaken in 2015."