Coconut Grove Playhouse meeting Friday night
There is an alternative plan for the Coconut Grove Playhouse which will be discussed at a City Hall meeting Friday, August 22 at 6 pm. A special committee of the Village Council is hosting the event.
This new plan suggests razing the current structure and then rebuilding the facade as part of a brand new structure. It would have the outside look of the current historic building, but it would be a new building.
This new plan calls for two theaters, one will be a smaller 300-seat venue and the larger venue would hold up to 900 people. A multi-story parking garage will be part of the building.
Additional monies would be raised by donations ($25 million in donations).
City Hall is located at 3500 Pan American Drive, the meeting is open to the public.
This new plan suggests razing the current structure and then rebuilding the facade as part of a brand new structure. It would have the outside look of the current historic building, but it would be a new building.
This new plan calls for two theaters, one will be a smaller 300-seat venue and the larger venue would hold up to 900 people. A multi-story parking garage will be part of the building.
Additional monies would be raised by donations ($25 million in donations).
City Hall is located at 3500 Pan American Drive, the meeting is open to the public.
posted by Tom Falco at 5:30 PM
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5 Comments:
Frankly the most pathetic thing I have heard is to demolish a building and its facade then build the same thing again. Restore and open the god damn thing ASAP instead of wasting and gifting more of our hard earned tax money.
Yes, that is a very odd proposal.
I agree wholeheartedly with 7:02. The Playhouse can be saved and should be saved. It's better to spend a little more money restoring it than wasting money to build a brand new one.
It does not cost more to restore the building, it is a lie and a spin, so they can go spend who knows, $1,000 per square foot, demolishing and rebuilding the same building and award the contract to a sweetheart contractor who made the most campaign contributions. It probably cost one third of the cost to restore it.
I know people who worked in that building, who dealt with its poor structural condition and inadequate facilities. There's little structural steel left in the concrete: notice the plywood on the south end of the building? It's hiding the external bracing that's holding up that end of the building. When they went to upgrade the fly system about 20 years ago, they had to build a structure inside the building because the walls kept crumbling when they tried to bold equipment to it.
"Saving" the existing building would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And that's just to stabilize the structure. You'd end up with building that's still a crappy place to produce plays.
All the movie palace architecture was stripped away in the 1930s. Anything left was removed to convert the space into hospital space during WW2. The 1954 conversion from the remnants of a movie house to a live performance space was done haphazardly and on the cheap. The resulting facility fell woefully short of industry standards even when GODOT opened. Again, this is not MY opinion, it's the opinion of the people who put the plays on the stage.
At least this plan will allow the look of the building to remain.
I do admit I'm confused: isn't there already a plan in motion that involves Gablestage and FIU? Is this an attempt to steal the horse out from under the rider in the middle of the race?
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