- Carving Up Kiel
- by Stefene Russell
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Originally published in Public Defender on September 11, 2002
“Simple means should be found by which by an
interchange of points of view, we may get together for the whole process
of modern life, by which we must exclude misunderstandings, bring all
men into a common counsel and so discover what is the common interest.”
-- Woodrow Wilson, quoted on the facade of the Kiel Opera House
Here's a sure way to confuse a friend from out of
town. Drive down to 14th and Market, and nonchalantly point out the Kiel
Opera House. Wait for your friend to take in the building's regal
silhouette, the giant pillars, the weathered bas-relief theatrical masks
along the front, the whimsical stone bears guarding the entrance. The
inevitable question will pop up: "What is that building?" Tell them it's
an art deco theater that seats 3,500 in the main auditorium, and that
George Gershwin, The Metropolitan Opera and The Ziegfield Follies
performed there. Then add that it's been sitting, unused and empty, for
more than a decade. Your friend will probably stare out the window with
a quizzical expression, then turn to you, and say why?
Sadly, that's a question that St. Louisans have
been trying to answer since 1991, when the Opera House closed its doors.
The city contracted with Kiel Center Partners the same year, with the
agreement being that the partnership would lease the entire grounds,
build a new hockey arena for the Blues on the site of the Kiel
Auditorium, and renovate and re-open the Opera House in the process.
Though the company did replace the wiring, plumbing and ventilation
systems, and has performed routine maintenance ever since, they
announced in 1996 that they would not be re-opening it for performances.
Arena construction had exceeded estimated costs; they had satisfactorily
met the $2.5 million slated for renovation of the theater; and
furthermore, they could not figure out how to make a profit on it.
Now, almost twelve years after it closed, following
a string of usability studies and a long list of plans that included
former Mayor Vince Schoemehl’s suggestion to convert the building into a
Ulysses S. Grant library and museum, there are two pending proposals to
bring the Opera House back to life. Clear Channel Entertainment has
expressed interest in investing $20 million to restore it to its
original use, that of functioning theater. A local group, the Kiel
School for the Arts Committee, has emerged with an alternate plan: to
spend $75 million to convert Kiel into a high school for the arts.
Though the City of St. Louis owns the building,
Bill and Nancy Laurie (Sam "Wal-Mart" Walton's daughter and son-in-law),
bought out both the hockey team and the Opera House lease from Kiel
Center Partners in 1999, and have not publicly stated which plan they
endorse, though the West End Word did mention that Harvey Harris, a core
member of the KSA Committee, had talked to the Lauries, and he claims
the couple told him that they think the school is "a dynamite plan."
Kiel Partners, who own and operate the Savvis Center, had plans to lease
the building to management better equipped to run a theater, but have
had no takers until now. If anyone has the financial means and booking
connections to resurrect Kiel, it's probably Clear Channel
Entertainment, who operates over 100 theaters in America and 30 in
England. At first glance, it seems like whatever plan takes precedence,
it's acey-deucey for St. Louisans, who sigh and say that they'd be happy
if the city did something, anything with the Opera House.
But Alderwoman Phyllis Young, who oversees Ward 7
(which includes downtown), says that she's not sold on either plan yet.
Though she's received letters from advocates of the Clear Channel plan,
she says she's yet to see anything concrete from Clear Channel
Entertainment themselves. As for the school proposal, she believes there
are "fundraising gaps" in that plan.
"I'm like the rest of the public," she says. "I'm
waiting to see what will happen."
Russell Carter is historian at Kiel for Performing
Arts, a non-profit that's been working to re-open Kiel Opera House since
it closed its doors in '91. Carter has been waiting ten years to see
what will happen to Kiel. In that time, he's pored over floor plans,
read studies, researched the history of the building and watched every
proposed plan for the building float by and come to nothing. And he
still believes that Kiel's best use is as a performing arts facility.
"There are complaints that St. Louis doesn't need a
theater this big," he says, "and I answer that with this: we're the only
major city in the country that has but one large theater. You discount
Chicago and Detroit, because they're bigger. But Columbus is smaller,
Kansas City is smaller, Indy, Cleveland is smaller. But even if you
discount those, you still have these other cities like Baltimore and
Pittsburgh, and they have more than one. Most of these have three."
The most parallel city on that list may be
Cleveland. Like St. Louis, it's an old rust-belt city that suffered from
the "White Flight" syndrome of the '60s, when the cities emptied out
into the suburbs. Until the mid to late '90s, downtown Cleveland boasted
exactly one restaurant. The facades of the buildings were black from
steel mill exhaust, the Cuyahoga River was on fire, and no one went
downtown unless they had to. Though the Drew Carey show and a new
ballpark certainly contributed to Cleveland's recovery, the renovation
of the city's old theater district certainly had something to do with it
as well. Today, Playhouse Square boasts five thriving theaters,
including the Allen Theater, which seats 10,000 people -- and is
operated by Clear Channel Entertainment. For October 2002, Clevelanders
will be able to see the Broadway hit "The Producers," at the Allen, as
well as performances by Laurie Anderson, The Jazz Ambassadors, Leon
Redbone and the American Ballet Theater, and pianist David Lanz in the
surrounding theaters.
Though Clear Channel has more than one cash cow in
St. Louis -- they're the booking force behind the Pageant and UMB Bank
Pavilion -- their theater division has yet to make a mark here. Last
September, David Anderson, a Clear Channel theater division executive,
met with Mayor Francis Slay to negotiate a deal over Kiel. Clear Channel
said they were willing to front the lion's share of the renovation
costs—though a tax-increment financing plan might be sought as well.
Slay declared that a deal with the Texas-based company was "more likely
than not," because concerns over parking problems could be remedied by
building a garage on 14th Street.
Because of Kiel for Performing Arts' long history
with the Opera House, the non-profit was also contacted by Clear Channel
when the company decided to examine Kiel as a new venue. Carter himself
knows the layout and history of Kiel like the lines in his own palms,
and there's no doubt that the organization would be a resource for
anyone looking to renovate the building. However, lately the
organization has spent its energy issuing press releases addressing
concerns over the Kiel School for the Arts proposal, which was made
public on July 4.
In an August 30 press release titled "Advantages of
a Restored Kiel Opera House for Saint Louis," KPA urges for a careful
scrutiny where the school proposal is concerned. "Why spend $75 million
for a school in a building never designed to be intended to be a
school?" KPA asks, pointing out that North City's newest school, Vashon,
a "state-of-the-art" facility that houses twice as many students as the
proposed arts school, came with a price tag of only $40 million. Their
biggest concern, however, is that the KSA Committee plan "would
seriously alter the Opera House -- preventing it from ever becoming a
major performance venue again."
According to some critics of the school proposal,
that may be exactly the point; Harvey Harris, a member of Fox
Associates, is a core member of the KSA Committee. Post-Dispatch
columnist Greg Freeman noted last month that "more than one St. Louisan
has been skeptical of Fox officials for years when it comes to the Opera
House...Even today some believe that the Fox is interested in making
sure that the Opera House never again offers competition. Fox officials
have denied this. But Harris' involvement in the new proposal has fueled
the rumors once again."
However, Harris says that those rumors are simply
that. He says the building is no longer viable as a theater, but that it
would be a shame not to do something with it. His proposal, he says, is
a way to re-adapt the building for use by the community while paying
homage to its history as a performing arts landmark.
"[Kiel] ceased to be an opera house 30 years ago,"
Harris says. "It's a relic in terms of usability. And that's a fact, not
an opinion. They have to realize that it was built for something that
doesn't exist today, vaudeville and traveling operas. There's no reason
to preserve it for things that no longer exist."
7th Ward Committeeman a real estate developer Brian
Wahby, who also serves on the KSA Committee, says more specifically,
that when the Kiel Auditorium was demolished, it altered the building
significantly, since the two structures shared the main stage.
"They truncated the ramps that were used to access
the stage," he says, "and as a result, access to the stage is impossible
currently, and would require significant modification. [The school is a]
great, creative, adaptive re-use. I'm not sure there's another
alternative."
However, Landmarks Association of St. Louis has
placed Kiel Opera House on its "Most Endangered List," since the
announcement of the KSA proposal. In their July/August newsletter, they
stated that they themselves proposed a similar project for the
Ambassador Theater, but that a school inside of Kiel "just doesn't
work." In describing KSA's proposed renovations (including an addition
of a gym below the auditorium, as well as conversion of the four
assembly halls into classroom space) they added, "If this is indeed the
plan, forget about historic tax credits."
Kelly Struhs, an Associate at Harris' firm who is
aiding Harris with the school project, confirmed that the KSA Committee
is looking into historic tax credits as a funding source, though she
adds that she is unsure of whether or not the project will qualify for
them, and that they are looking at a wide variety of funding sources,
including New Market tax credits. The Landmarks Commission says that
they received a call from Dan Jay, the architect for the school project,
about the building's enlistment on the National Register, and that he
requested a copy of the Registry certificate, but Director Carolyn Toft
says that if Kiel were indeed altered in the manner in which the KSA
Committee proposes, there is no question that the Kiel would no longer
be eligible to be listed in the National Register.
Oddly enough, Harris, as one of the main supporters
of the Fox's restoration in 1982, is no stranger to adapting older
theaters for modern audiences. Indeed, the Fox was built in 1929, even
earlier than Kiel. Though the theater initially had a strong audience
turnout when it first opened, the theater suffered later that year when
the Great Depression hit. Due to competition with other theaters, the
Fox went into receivership in 1931, and when it shut its doors in 1978,
it had been reduced to running old Kung Fu movies, and had already begun
to deteriorate.
In 1981, the building was purchased by Fox
Associates, which included Harris, Leon Strauss, Robert Baudendistel and
Dennis McDaniel. They performed a massive renovation on the old silent
movie house, which included replacing the roof and installing new wiring
and plumbing, and according to the St. Louis Theater Organ Society, "restor[ing]
the theatre as closely as possible to its 1929 state of magnificence."
That meant reproducing plasterwork, replacing missing pieces of art
glass and brass fixtures, and weaving 7300 yards of carpeting in the
original elephant pattern. They also renovated the "Crawford Special"
Wurlitzer organ, one of only five of its type in the world, and
completely overhauled the stage and backstage in order to accommodate
modern productions. Yet the KSA Committee school proposal, in arguing
for a massive restructuring of the Opera House, states that "the meaning
of preserve/restore should not be limited to 'putting things back the
way they were' - as if all that we have been is all that we can ever
be."
And architect Mike Bauer, who worked on a 1996
usability study of the Opera House, says that though anyone who takes
over the building is looking at a great deal of renovation no matter
what they do to it, and that it's still perfectly usable as a theater.
"There are some plusses and minuses that existed
with the building since day one," Bauer admits, "because it was built in
a time when to load in and out of touring shows wasn't as critical...and
now things are a lot more complicated with the sound equipment, special
effects equipment and so forth that go with touring shows. But we worked
out a way to get a lift in there to bring whole trucks in there, whole
trailers in there, up to stage level."
In addition, he says, the dressing rooms, rest
rooms and elevators would have to be modernized. "It really gets down to
the minor details, like painting the bottoms of the seats," he laughs.
"But it's all fixable...the building is in excellent condition...it's
maintained a constant temperature though all the winters, they [Kiel
Partners] keep air circulating through the summer months, so it's been
protected that way. Acoustically, it's an excellent theater, it's a good
size, and there are plenty of seats."
Dan Jay says that yes, the building is appropriate
as a theater. The problem, he continues, is that Kiel has too many
seats.
"The day the Symphony decided to renovate Powell
Hall," he says, "[Kiel] lost a tenant. The day that the Fox decided to
renovate the Fox, it gained a competitor. Now we have a major new arts
center opening at UMSL. Meanwhile, the community is about the same size,
and the actual audiences for these kinds of theaters has certainly not
increased. It's a victim to all sorts of forces that raise the question
whether it will ever be a theater again. The building requires major
seismic and retrofit. [It] has significant problems to get sets and move
sets to the stage. So one would really be talking about at this point in
time a pretty major, on the scale of what was done to the Fox, a pretty
major renovation to bring it back to its prior glory as a viable
theater."
If too many seats are the problem, then the School
for the Arts redesign definitely addresses that: it calls to reduce the
auditorium's seating from 3,800 to about 1,000. Because a high school
has no need for an enormous auditorium, and because the east and west
wings are the only part of the building that receive sunlight, Jay says
that though the plan isn't cast in stone, turning the building into a
school necessarily means altering the auditorium.
"You either say we need to preserve the space, so
we're going to put the classrooms in space where there is no daylight,
and keep the auditoriums because they have to be kept," he says, "or you
say no, we're going to convert this to a school, build auditoriums that
are internal, and really serve the students because those stages are
really not what current productions want."
But as Sue Taylor of Washington University's Music
Department wrote in a July 10 commentary in the Post-Dispatch, Kiel's
problems are balanced out with some great virtues. Taylor points out
that it has an orchestra pit, unlike Powell Hall; and its acoustics are
superlative, and does not require amplification, as the Fox does.
Radically altering the auditorium would mean "destroying the only large
hall in St. Louis with both acoustical integrity and versatility."
And Carter points out that the main auditorium
isn't the building's only good feature. It also has four smaller
theaters, as well as a restaurant space, which once functioned as the
Kiel Club. It also boasts a backstage, he says, that is "105 feet high.
It's one of the largest in the country. Radio City Music Hall and the
Metropolitan Opera are the same." The stage itself is enormous: 145 feet
from wall to wall, with 48 feet from the back wall to the curtain line,
which is a full six feet from the orchestra pit. And though it was used
for staging operas and symphony concerts, it was actually constructed to
be an extremely versatile space.
"It was designed in late '20s, and they finished in
'34, and during that time they really were able to come up with a lot of
things that make it so flexible, and so usable," Carter says.
In fact, it was that flexibility that forced the
Symphony to find other space in the '60s. According to documentation by
the Department of the Interior, the Symphony vacated the Opera House
because it "needed a permanent home of its own." The Symphony cited
concerns due to scheduling conflicts with other musical performances, as
well as noise from Billikens games in the auditorium, despite the
presence of curtains designed for soundproofing. The building they chose
for their new home, the St. Louis Theater (now Powell Hall) is the
oldest remaining theater in St. Louis. It was originally built as a
vaudeville-movie house, and also required a great deal of renovation
before it was fit to house a modern audience.
So reason suggests that if renovation was possible
for the St. Louis Theater and the Fox (as well as the Allen Theater in
Cleveland, which was built during roughly the same era) that it would be
possible for the Kiel as well. There have been three usability studies
since Kiel closed, including the Kiel Partners study that Bauer worked
on. The first was commissioned by Fox Associates, who even then
suggested that it was unfit for use as theater. In fact, they suggested
turning Kiel into a parking garage, albeit with the current facade
intact. The second was the Kiel Partners study, which also suggested
alternate uses, including a Smithsonian Museum and a jazz and blues hall
of fame. The third, which was paid for by the City and the St. Louis
2004 Committee, was done by Connecticut's Theater Consultants, Inc.
Their conclusion was also that Kiel should not be used as a theater. Not
because it wasn't suited to be a theater, but as president Victor
Gotesman told the Riverfront Times, that "by renovating Kiel as a
performing arts center, you're really turning your back on Grand
Center."
Indeed, Steve Woolf, artistic director at the
Repertory Theater, has a similar opinion. Woolf was asked to attend a
KSA Committee meeting on the school proposal plan, but says that he,
like Ald. Young, doesn't have enough information either way, but his
concern is that "there's not enough programming, enough product on the
road to keep the lights lit at Kiel, and keep the lights lit at the
Fox."
He continues that he doesn't think Playhouse Square
is a fair comparison, because Cleveland is marketed as a destination
point, and the five theaters don't all simultaneously book Broadway
shows.
Though Woolf's point on the booking is correct,
Cleveland wasn't marketed as a destination point until very recently. In
fact, there was a time when it was considered lower than St. Louis on
the "flyover territory" scale. The problem may be that St. Louis is too
much like Cleveland -- it's another blue collar Midwestern town that
sometimes has a hard time balancing its addiction to baseball with its
need to support the arts. Arts institutions face an uphill battle to
survive, and right now, St. Louis is attempting to forge its own version
of Playhouse Square with Grand Center. There's still no guarantee it
will fly, and when a project like Grand Center is in an embryonic stage,
it's a vulnerable thing. Right now, when shows like "The Producers" or
"Mama Mia," pass through St. Louis, they play at the Fox. Parse through
Clear Channel Entertainment's website, and you can see that in other
cities, Clear Channel is booking those exact shows into their own
theaters. If Clear Channel were to bring the Kiel back to life, there's
no doubt that with their money and booking power, they'd have first pick
of the big touring productions. And considering that, it's not hard to
imagine why Fox Associates and other organizations associated with Grand
Center might feel threatened.
On the other hand, if Russell Carter is right and
that Kiel can "do for downtown St. Louis what New Jersey Performing Arts
Center did for Newark," the Opera House would be a boon for the entire
city, including Grand Center. With hotel and residential construction
planned for downtown, there may not be a problem filling up five
theaters like they do in Cleveland.
If the building is radically altered, it's altered
forever. If the building sits vacant, the situation is no better than it
was before. If Clear Channel puts the Fox under, no one is the happier
for that, either. Kiel Opera House is St. Louis' Gordian knot, and there
is no flashing sword in sight.
"I just don't think it's easily settleable," Woolf
says sadly. "If the wind gets taken out of the Fox because the critical
mass can't support both, then we have a problem. On the other hand, you
go into the theater and you think God, the thought of having it torn
apart -- you can't even consider it, because it's such a beautiful
space. Some use needs to come out of it, but I don't know what the
highest and best use is yet."
In the end, it may be the Kiel Opera House itself
that offers up the wisest advice on its own future. On the right wing of
the building, Woodrow Wilson pleads for us to bring all men into common
counsel and so discover what the common interest is. Somehow, it seems
that in the midst of the studies, proposals, pie charts and budget
projections, someone forgot one minor detail: to ask the people of St.
Louis what they want to do with the Kiel Opera House.
©Pub Def Publishing 2002 |