Paul Bass Photo
The Palace stage, viewed Wednesday from the balcony.
Wolf: “Comeback time.”
To the boom-boxed strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” a crew from All-Phaze Remodeling set to work rehabbing an 89-year-old performance hall while officials downstairs heralded the next phase in New Haven’s rebirth.
All-Phaze Remodeling at work Wednesday.
The occasion Wednesday morning was the official announcement that New Haven Center For Performing Arts (NHCPA), a not-for-profit corporation that has kept College Street’s Palace Theater dark for the past 12 years, has begun to fix up the joint and hired a promoter to begin staging concerts there in May.
The theater will go by the name College Street Music Hall. The downstairs seats have all been removed; the balcony seats (pictured) remain. A new terraced orchestra section will hold portable seats and tables for 650-capacity “cabaret-style” shows, and be cleared for standing attendees at 2,000-capacity shows. Weeknight shows will have an 11 p.m. curfew; weekend shows will run until midnight. A big-name film festival is also under discussion.
Mayor Toni Harp described the “rebirth of this time-honored performance hall” as “another step toward redefining the city.” To which her cultural affairs chief, Andrew Wolf, added: “This is our comeback time.”
Harp directed her economic development chief, Matthew Nemerson (pictured), to find someone to reopen the theater, originally constructed in 1926 as a vaudeville and movie theater. Developer Joel Schiavone renovated the hall and reopened it in 1984 in conjunction with the opening of the downtown entertainment district, with the Shubert Theater rebuilt and reopened across the street. The Shubert continued staging shows, while the Palace went dark in 2002. The Palace’s — er, College Street Music Hall’s — reopening returns to the vision of two theaters anchoring the district. It comes at a time when an estimated 2,000 new apartments are on the drawing boards for New Haven, following a host of other building projects in recent years.
“A city’s arts and cultural offerings express the heart and soul of [a] community,” Harp said. “We are adding value to that portfolio.”
Through a friend — attorney, musician and former Alderman Steve Mednick — Nemerson found a Waterbury promoter named Keith Mahler. NHCPA hired Mahler both to stage the shows and to oversee the renovations. The city is not spending money on the project. Asked at Wednesday event how much the renovations will cost, Mahler (pictured) snapped, “We don’t comment on finances.” NHCPA applied for a building permit on Dec. 2 (which was granted last Friday) to begin doing $80,000 worth of construction at the theater. Other permits will be required. Peter Bugryn of Merrell Architects, which prepared the renovation designs, said the work includes building new bathrooms and exits, bringing the building up to code.
NHCPA’s president, Elissa O. Getto (pictured Wednesday with Mednick), called the work “a renovation, not a restoration,” but “a rehabilitation.” The theater’s “bones” are in good shape, she said.
An earlier version of this story follows:
Palace Theater To Reopen
Rendering of the planned new facade.
A long-shuttered historic downtown theater across from the Shubert is slated to reopen in May as a concert hall.
The promoter brought in to stage the concerts, Keith Mahler, has experience booking shows at another theater-turned-concert hall called the Palace, in Waterbury.
Paul Bass Photo
He plans to join the Harp administration at a press conference Wednesday morning under the marquee of the New Haven Palace at 238 College St., where details of the theater’s re-rebirth as the College Street Music Hall will be announced. (The marquee for now reads “Apartments Available,” not “Palace.”) Local concert promoter “Manic Mark” Nussbaum is also scheduled to be present.
“The theater will feature multi-capacity configurations for up to 2,000 patrons including general admission concerts with open orchestra level and VIP balcony seating; seated theater shows; cabaret table-style seating; or, a blend thereof. Programming at CSMH will focus on a wide range of music including Americana, Indie Rock, Classic Rock, Adult Contemporary, Alternative Modern Rock, Country and Neo Soul, as well as Comedy,” a City Hall press release stated. It said that Mayor Toni Harp had directed her economic development chief, Matthew Nemerson, to seek a way to turn the lights back on at the theater. Nemerson enlisted the help of his friend, attorney and former Alderman (and performing musician) Steven Mednick
The news comes a week after another historic institution on the block, the Anchor bar, closed its doors.
A former vaudeville house and then movie theater known as the Roger Sherman, the 2,000-seat hall, built in 1926, was renovated and reborn as the Palace Performing Arts Center, a concert venue, in the 1984 as part of developer Joel Schiavone’s revival of the surrounding College-Chapel Street district. A revived Shubert theater also reopened across the street. The Shubert has remained open and busy; the Palace struggled. Schiavone lost that property and others in the district in the 1990s recession; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) arranged to sell most of the properties to Yale. A not-for-profit corporation called the New Haven Center for Performing Arts Inc. was formed to own the theater. Developers Bob Matthews tried to run the theater but failed to revive it. It shut its doors more than a decade ago. Now the corporation has enlisted Mahler to bring the concerts back.
Mahler runs Premier Concerts out of Waterbury. (Read about that here.) In the 1970s he staged rock concerts at Waterbury’s Palace Theater, then went into real-estate investing.
He is also listed in state records as the agent for the current incarnation of New Haven Center for Performing Arts Inc., which still owns the shuttered theater on the first floor of 238 College St. PMC Property Group owns the apartments on the four floors above the theater.
The city press release said that Mayor Toni Harp had directed his economic development chief, Matthew Nemerson, to seek a way to turn the lights back on at the theater. Nemerson enlisted the help of his friend, attorney and former Alderman (and performing musician) Steven Mednick, who knows Mahler.
The NHCPA applied for a building permit on Dec. 2 (which was granted last Friday) to begin doing $80,000 worth of construction at the theater. Other permits will follow. Peter Bugryn of Merrell Architects, which prepared the renovation designs, said the work includes building new bathrooms and exits, bringing the building up to code.
Rendering of the new design.
Before it closed, the Palace hosted popular touring acts. Some personal favorite concerts seen there in the 1980s: John Prine, B.B. King and Doc Watson. (Saddest-to-miss show: Suzanne Vega.) Have favorite memories of Palace shows? Feel free to post them in the comments section below.