Repairs to Begin Next Week at Thunder Bay Theater
After a fire broke out at the John A. Lau Saloon next door to the Thunder Bay Theater, the smoke and water damage caused the theater to be shut down, and it has remained dormant for three years.
Tuesday, September 5th renovations will begin to repair the Thunder Bay Theater.
“The brick will kind of be tuck pointed; any deteriorating mortar will be fixed, the parapet wall on Fletcher Street will be stabilized, and then before the winter, we’ll have new windows on the building,” said executive director of the Alpena Downtown Development Authority, Anne Gentry. “We’re also redoing the storefront windows so it’ll look more like its historic appearance, and then the new roof.”
This is a $1.4 million project that will be funded by state and local grants. That process can be tricky and difficult sometimes, but the majority of the funding has been secured.
“That’s been a little tedious working through how all the different pieces work together, especially looking at the exterior of the building needs to be done before the interior, so really trying to stack everything together, but we’ve been really lucky that because this is a historic building and it’s mixed use that there are a lot of funds available through the state specifically that are for projects just like this,” said Gentry.
There were elements of the building that needed to be repaired before the fire, and now they have the chance to do that.
“We really wanted to take this opportunity to fix a lot of the things in the building that needed to be done before the fire, and kind of do it the right way and all as one big project, so that’s how we arrived at this timeline,” said Gentry.
The Thunder Bay Theater is important to the people of Alpena, so they are hoping the renovations make the building good as new again.
“It’s been really cool seeing people so excited about the building being redone and that we’re really committed to bringing back the organization and bringing live theater back in the building,” said Gentry.
The timeline is expected to take a year, and they are hoping to have the building reopened in the fall of 2024.
