Final designs are in place for a new $7.5-million facility that would house the Bellevue Youth Theatre organization and all its shows at Crossroads International Park.

The goal is to insert a 150-seat, eco-friendly auditorium into an existing hillside, avoiding significant loss of green space and allowing park users to picnic on the roof if they like.

The project is a wrap in terms of planning. All that’s left to do is pin down the last bit of funding.

The city pledged $2 million toward the new theater, matching funds dedicated to the project through a voter-approved parks levy in 2008.

Another $2.5 million is expected in the form of city grant money.

But Bellevue is also about $90 million short on its capital budget, meaning those funds could end up on hold.

The city manager is due to propose a new budget in October, and the city council will sign off on a final version before the end of the year.

Jim Pratt, president of the Bellevue Youth Theatre Foundation, says its not a matter of if, but when the money will be in place for the new theater.

The foundation is committed to raising $1.2 million for the project. So far, the group has brought in around $300,000.

Most of that money comes through the foundation’s annual benefit events, which typically involve stage productions. Bellevue City Council members have been known to make guest appearances in the shows.

Claudia Balducci and Conrad Lee both appeared in “Cats,” John Chelminiak sang in “Music of the Night,” and Grant Degginger played the role of a Jet in “Eastside Story,” as well as a rabbi in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Chelminiak acknowledges that the city’s budget issues have the potential to cause a temporary setback for the theater project.

“Some of these projects we’ve had on the books for a long time, and we still need to be committed to them,” he said. “Some might just take a little longer.”

Chelminiak said his top two priorities heading into the upcoming budget discussions will be the city’s mobility-and-infrastructure initiative, along with any obligations stemming from the parks levy.

Bellevue Youth Theater started in 1990 at the Crossroads Community Center. The all-inclusive program – which generally includes nine performances per year, as well as camps and classes – eventually outgrew that space and moved to the former Ivanhoe Elementary School Building on Northup Way.

The group’s new 12,000-square-foot theater complex would include a 150-seat auditorium with flexible seating, offices, an outdoor stage with sloped lawn seating, and support spaces such as dressing rooms and storage areas.

Designers expect the facility to meet LEED Gold certification standards.

Green features for the building would include rooftop “light trumpets” that provide natural luminosity, solar panels, and a heating-and-cooling system that pumps heat-transfer liquid through pipes dipping 300 feet below the surface to take advantage of moderate seasonal temperatures there.

Robert Becker, chief architect for the project, calls the proposed facility an “environmental sculpture.”

“We don’t want to take anything away from the park, but we want a wonderful theater for kids and the environment,” he said. “This is a theater in the park, and a park on the theater.”

The plan is to break ground on the project next March if the necessary funding is in place. The new theater would then open by mid-2012.

Crossroads International Park is home to a popular water-spray play area. None of the existing amenities at the 34-acre park would be affected by the theater complex.

(Video and designs courtesy of Becker Architects)