Vance sees VCU future for Landmark Theater

Tom Vance, a candidate for the 1st District City Council seat, wants VCU to take over operation of the Landmark Theater.

The idea came to him after seeing an illustration of the planned improvements to Monroe Park.

“Here’s all of this, and there’s the Landmark sitting off to the side. The Landmark wasn’t the centerpiece of anything,” Vance said.

He feels the building will soon look out of place amid the renewed VCU Monroe Park Campus.

“Whether it’s the Belvidere area or the Broad Street corridor, VCU is wholly responsible for a lot of the good things going on in this area,” he said. “I think (VCU President) Dr. (Eugene) Trani is doing an incredible job, and the Landmark Theater would fit into that. There is an opportunity for VCU to explore that and to capitalize on it.”

He remembers coming to Richmond as an undergraduate to attend events in its cavernous ballroom.

For 22 years since graduating from James Madison University, he’s worked at Phillip Morris USA, today as the finance manager for disbursements and control. Vance said he will bring a corporate view to the council.

“You just have a different mindset when you work for a company the size of Phillip Morris,” he said. “I want to see some of the opportunities I’ve had to work in an organization like this to work better for the city of Richmond.”

He supports the strong-mayor system that began with L. Douglas Wilder’s election in 2004. The CEO-like mayor adds accountability to the system, Vance said.

He said the nine-person council struggles to communicate with Wilder, however.

“One problem our council seems to have consistently is indecision, and the failure to work cohesively working with the mayor,” Vance said. “I’m often frustrated with the deliver of the message to the mayor.”

He doesn’t settle for comparisons to other southern cities like Charlotte and Raleigh. Instead, Richmond needs to get back in line with Federal Reserve bank cities such as Kansas City, Cleveland and Atlanta, Vance said.

“If you compare Richmond today versus where it was when the Federal Reserve system started, we haven’t gone very far, and we need to look long and hard at that,” Vance said. “We’re starting to get the wake-up call.”

Vance is one of five running for the hotly contested seat. During an event at the University of Richmond Wednesday, Oct. 25, the candidates went back and forth on taxes, the proposed U of R stadium and city crime. Leading the race are Paul Goldman, former right-hand man to Wilder, and Bruce Tyler, an architect and principal at Baskervill Architects who is backed by the business community. Goldman, a critic of projects such as the Performing Arts Center, urged the adoption of the elected-mayor system in Richmond in 2004. Tyler, meanwhile, earned the endorsement of the Richmond Times-Dispatch to replace Manoli Louppasi, who has left the council to prepare to challenge Delegate Katherine Waddell next year for her seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Also on the 1st District ballot are R. Mark Pounders, director of Winn Transportation, and Dan Wilkins, a retired brigadier general with 35 years of Army service.