Kenosha Theatre

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(9/6/1987) New future for theater?

By DANIEL FISHER Staff Writer

A Madison consultant who specializes in breathing new life into faded downtown movie palaces thinks the Kenosha Theatre, 5913 Sixth Ave., is a good candidate for restoration. But before the curtain goes up, he said, local organizations may have to raise more than $1 million.

“This is a big one. And it’s gorgeous inside. But it needs a lot of work,” said Daniel Pierotti, whose firm, Daniel L. Pierotti & Co., is is currently renovating or developing performing arts centers in Minnesota, Milwaukee, and Peoria, III.

“The Kenosha Theatre has been sitting empty for years without heat,” he said. “It’s going to need a whole new roof,electrical system, and mechanicals.”

Pierotti has been retained by the Citizens Group for the Kenosha Theatre, an organization of downtown business owners and other interested people, to conduct feasibility studies on the renovation. He spoke Thursday night at a fundraiser for the group at the Holiday Inn.

In an interview before the meeting. Pierotti said he envisions the Kenosha Theatre as a regional performing arts center serving Kenosha, Walworth and Racine counties as well as Lake and McHenry counties in Illinois. Following the pattern set by renovated theaters in other cities, he foresees the Kenosha Theatre booking a variety of touring shows - “from Chinese acrobats to Itzhak Perlman,” he said as well as local concerts, meetings and movie festivals.

Since the theater was constructed in the 1920s for both live performances and movies, he said, it would cost less to renovate than some of the other projects he has overseen.

If the Citizens Group can raise Pierotti’s $60,000 fee, he will conduct feasibility studies on the costs of renovation and marketing surveys to determine the demand for theatrical productions in this area.

“Your only competition will be in Woodstock, III. and Alpine Valley, and Alpine Valley is open only in the summer,” he said.

But before renovation can start, the Citizens Group must raise an enormous amount of money, perhaps in the millions. Pierotti’s firm will lead the fundraising effort, seeking corporate and private donations. But before they start, the Baas family, which bought the theatre building in 1983, must transfer ownership over to a nonprofit corporation.

The Baas family will retain the apartments and storefronts facing Sixth Avenue, he said, which are actually in a separate building from the massive theatre behind.

Pierotti said he would hire Architect Dan Coffey, who led the renovation of the Chicago Theatre last year, to renovate the Kenosha Theatre. In addition to replacing the roof, he said, workers would have to rebuild much of the ornate plasterwork inside the theatre.

“It’s very ornate, very elaborate, kind of an Italianate/Moorish design,” he said. But moisture and cold have taken their toll on the horsehair-based plaster, he said, so workers would have to recreate it with modern, fiberglass-based plaster instead. Still, Pierotti is optimistic about the renovation.

“My feeling is, with Kenosha’s kind of upbeat atmosphere, there will be a market for this kind of theater,” he said. “As you know, the yuppies are creeping into town.”