For more than 30 years civic, arts and business leaders around Edmonds have dreamed about having a regional performing arts center in their community. Now, that cultural resource is about to become a reality.
The Edmonds Center for the Arts will kick off preseason events on Monday when the Cascade Symphony Orchestra opens its 45th season in the renovated facility at 410 Fourth Ave. N. in Edmonds.
The arts center’s managing director, Joseph McIalwain, noted the three months of preseason events, scheduled through December, is a shakedown period before the official grand opening on Jan. 6. Regional groups such as orchestra, ballet and chorale organizations that will use the theater can get to know their new home. An International Artists Series is slated for January through June.
Plans for the arts center began in earnest when the City of Edmonds created a Public Facility District in April 2001 to study how best to get the facility built. Construction began in September 2005.
The theater renovation project was completed on time and on budget, McIalwain said. The $18.5 million budget covered site acquisition and renovation costs. The design was handled by LMN Architects, who designed Benaroya Hall in Seattle, and construction was undertaken by Sellen Construction.
McIalwain noted that the city of Edmonds played a key part in facilitating the renovation. “Stephen Clifton and Cindi Cruz of the Edmonds Community Services Department were key players in the management of the construction, working with Kjris Lund and the PFD board,” he said.
The result of those efforts is the gorgeous new 700-seat theater, comprised of 400 seats on the main floor and 300 seats in the balcony.
The project preserved the historic architecture of the building, which once housed Edmonds junior and senior high schools, as well as Puget Sound Christian College. The building is considered one of the best examples of Art Moderne design in Washington state.
If the project hadn’t preserved the historic building, most likely something like condos would have sprung up there, McIalwain suggested.
While renovation poses some challenges, such as retrofitting new systems into the existing structure, the benefits are enormous, McIalwain said. For example, the 68-foot ceiling gives the fly loft, which holds scenery, the capacity to clear itself, so the audience can’t see that rigging from their seats. “We couldn’t have that with a new building,” he said.
The original building was a Works Project Administration project undertaken during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in 1939. “It’s a design one doesn’t see anymore, from the end of the Art Deco period. It’s very sleek and sharp looking,” McIalwain said.
The restoration includes silver around the doors. The exterior walls have been painted green. The Edmonds Arts Festival, which has been part of the Edmonds community for almost 50 years, has also been supportive of the new center for the arts. They are loaning two Dale Chihuly glass pieces to be displayed in the lobby. They have built cases for them and have also commissioned two artists to create chandeliers for the lobby.
The completed first phase of construction consists of the theater renovation, and the addition of new restrooms and an elevator. Future phases will tackle renovation of the old classroom spaces behind the theater, as well as a parking garage, rooftop garden and meeting room.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
