ST. LOUIS -- The University of Missouri-St. Louis still plans to open its performing arts center next year, despite ongoing financial and personnel struggles.

"We think we're going to start more slowly than we originally planned, but we're going to start," chancellor Blanche M. Touhill said.

The arts center is scheduled to be finished by spring, but the departure of its executive director has left it without a staff, an operating budget and a schedule of events.

But even before Bryan Rives' position as executive director was eliminated this summer, he said he sensed something wrong.

"I was kind of surprised when the months were rolling by and I wasn't allowed to do anything you're usually prepared to do for the opening of a facility," Rives said.

A big setback for the center has been the state's refusal so far to produce $1 million in operating funds. The university had counted on the money to help plug the building's projected annual operating deficit of almost $1.25 million.

A consultant concluded four years ago that the building would generate only enough revenue to cover about half of its $2.5 million annual operating budget. A year later, in a review of the university's overall finances, the University of Missouri system's financial office agreed with the consultant's numbers but called the state subsidy unlikely.

No go-ahead

In January, UMSL hired Rives, then general manager of the Indiana University Auditorium , as the performing arts center's executive director.

In an interview soon after he began his new job, Rives said he would begin right away to hire staff, book events and develop budgets for the center.

Rives said last week that he had developed budgets, to which university administrators responded with noncommittal. And they never gave him the go-ahead to hire staff or book events, he said.

In mid-July, the university notified Rives, whose annual salary was $85,000, that his job was being eliminated. He stayed on through Aug. 22

University spokesman Bob Samples described Rives' removal as one of several moves the campus is making to deal with a state budget crisis that has caught all of the state's public colleges and universities short.

At the same time it put Rives on notice, the university began seeking an executive consultant to manage and operate the center. Two companies -- Contemporary Productions of St. Louis and Compass Facility Management of Ames, Iowa -- have responded to the university's request for qualifications.

The request said UMSL would interview likely candidates the week of July 29. As of last week, neither Compass nor Contemporary had been contacted for an interview.

New manager this month

Touhill said that's because the university was reconsidering what it needs from an outside manager. The thinking now, she said, is to take much of the center's work in-house, using existing university employees for such functions as marketing, ticketing and security.

Samples said UMSL expected to have a manager in place this month. That would allow a year to book events for the opening season. Some experts in the field say a year's lead time is minimal.