Hopes were high in the Pocono Mountains when the Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts opened last summer.

	RickSmith/Associated Press
	Nelson Whittaker, buildings and grounds caretaker at The Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts, in Bushkill, Pa., stands outside of the Center's Tom Ridge Pavilion yesterday. The Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts has cancelled summer concerts by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and all other scheduled events for the 2004 season. Officials at the $35 million performing arts center are asking for a state bailout as investors search for options in taking the next step.

The $35 million center, with its glorious Tom Ridge Pavilion, promised to create jobs, generate tax revenue and bring culture back to the lakeside resort playground where the likes of Danny Kaye, Carol Channing and Alan King once performed.

The era was ushered in with much fanfare Aug. 8 by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, which had signed a 10-year contract to perform at the 675-acre retreat in the woods near Bushkill, Pike County, a hundred miles west of New York City. The Poconos were to serve as our symphony's summer home.

But it was not the smoothest of starts. Hard-hat workers were still putting the finishing touches on the fancy pavilion when the bassoons and the blue bloods pulled in. (Fortunately, the bulldozers and asphalt spreaders were turned off when the music of Mozart began.)

Since then, the sound has pretty much been a diminuendo.

According to Michael Rubinkam, a reporter with The Associated Press, there were fewer than 20 shows staged at the center, the last one in December.

Last week, Post-Gazette classical music critic Andrew Druckenbrod reported that Mountain Laurel was canceling its contract for symphony shows this summer. And no other events are scheduled for 2004.

The resort was built with millions in grants and guaranteed loans from the state and federal government. (The $15 million from Pennsylvania's taxpayers was arranged by Ridge as one of his last acts as our governor.)

Now, Rubinkam reports, Mountain Laurel officials are heading back to Harrisburg in search of a state bailout. Only seven months after their gala opening.

"We are very disappointed that Mountain Laurel has had these difficulties," said Bob Ugoccioni, the Poconos' top tourism official and an advisory member of the Mountain Laurel board.

Rick Smith/Associated Press
Interior view of The Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts, in Bushkill, Pa.

Right now, Rubinkam writes, the pavilion sits empty, the thermostat is turned down to 55 degrees, and the plumbing is drained. The only paid employees at the center -- which was supposed to create 100 jobs -- are the finance director and a few part-time maintenance and security people. And there are unpaid bills to various suppliers totaling $600,000.

Joseph Blaney, Mountain Laurel's acting president, blames most of the center's financial difficulties on its inability to borrow more money. (Much like the rest of us do.)

"We were underfunded right from the get-go. We should have had more money for operations," he said.

It's a sad song with an all-too-familiar refrain.

And the symphony won't have to travel to stay there

Putting so much money into a new venture is always risky. Local officials are hoping for better luck with the new 182-room hotel that opened yesterday in our own Cultural District, Downtown.

The nine-story Courtyard by Marriott hotel on Penn Avenue includes 12 suites, three meeting rooms, a business center, and wireless Internet access in the lobby. The hotel takes up two turn-of-the-century buildings -- that would be turn-of-the-last-century buildings -- whose facades were restored by developer Oxford Development Co.

The new hotel, near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, will give local tourism officials nearly 200 more rooms to offer convention planners.

However, local officials are still pushing to build a 500-room "headquarters" hotel next door to the convention center. That $104 million project has been stymied by funding shortfalls.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato is seeking up to $22 million more from the state to build the hotel. The state previously had pledged $10 million.