Last year, The Bushnell’s leaders were confident they could erase the performing-arts venue’s $9.2-million debt by the end of 2020, its 90th anniversary year.

Now they hope to retire the Hartford-based theater’s long history of debt by its 100th anniversary in 2030.

What changed?

It wasn’t the pandemic, said CEO and President David Fay.

The Bushnell actually refinanced and paid down some of its debt in March — 10 days before the forced COVID-19 shutdown, Fay said.

The timing was fortuitous in what has turned out to be one of the most challenging years ever for The Bushnell and the rest of Connecticut’s performing-arts industry.

“Interest rates were so low it didn’t make sense to buy [the loan] all the way down to zero,” Fay said, noting that The Bushnell now has $5.7 million in remaining debt, which matures in 10 years and carries a 2.76% interest rate. “I’m glad we made the plan to do what we did before the virus was an issue. Taking $4 million-plus out of our cash flow and buying [the debt] down made sense before [the pandemic hit] — and after. It was a good balance of investment opportunity versus mitigating our downside risk by buying down the debt.”

Webster Bank provided the refinancing, which will free up some cash flow in the years ahead. But it’s questionable whether anyone would have made that loan after the virus forced the theater to close in March amid the pandemic.

“Probably, I think, but it would have cost more, not because interest rates would be any higher — they are now what they were back then — but because of the whole question of, ‘When are you going to be back up and running and have earned revenue again?’ ”

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