A man walks along Indiana Avenue, in front of the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso Friday July 17, 2020. The performance hall, first opened in 1893, was recently awarded grants to make up for lost revenue due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Andy Lavalley/Post-Tribune (Post-Tribune)

Firmed up plans for a $6.5 million renovation of the historic Memorial Opera House in downtown Valparaiso were met with applause from the audience at the tail end of a lengthy Porter County Council meeting Tuesday night.

Now plotting begins to determine a funding stream and get the project moving as the cost of construction materials only rises.

Planned renovations to the opera house, which was built in 1893 to commemorate Civil War veterans, are extensive. The building was remodeled in 1967 and 1996, but “nothing has really happened beyond that other than Band-Aids,” said Scott Cherry, senior vice president of The Skillman Corporation, which will be managing the project.

An analysis of the building’s needs was done in 2018, but plans to renovate had to be tabled as the county took on other projects. Tuesday, the council directed its attorney to look into the options for issuing new bonds to fund the project, probably from revenue from the Porter County Foundation, which was formed in 2016 to achieve higher return on investment for the revenue from the 2007 sale of the county hospital.

County officials last year proposed using $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to renovate the opera house and connect it to the Porter County Museum but backed off of the idea after public outcry.

“We spoke a lot earlier in the meeting about quality of life in Porter County and this preservation certainly falls in step with that,” said Council Vice President Mike Jessen, R-4th District. “Not only is it a historical monument, it’s a county asset, and the last seven, eight years plus, we’ve focused on our assets.”

Memorial Opera House business director Scot McDonald poses for a photo outside of the historic Valparaiso building on Thursday. (Kyle Telechan/Post Tribune) (Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune / Chicago Tribune)

While construction costs are projected to be just over $4.7 million, a budget of $575,000 has been built into the project for inflation escalation. Construction contingencies account for another $250,000, while soft costs such as furniture have a budget of $900,000. Cherry advised the council that ordering supplies of all kinds needs to happen early, as delivery schedules are very far out. “We’re getting smart over the year about how to approach these projects,” he said, citing items that have taken twice as long as usual to arrive.

“Patron experiences are certainly challenging,” said MOH Executive Director Scot MacDonald of the current condition of the building. He said the queue for the women’s bathroom during intermission is at the heart of the problem. “We get this crazy human knot and people don’t always know where to go.”

Exterior improvements include: masonry restoration to crumbling brick; window replacement; painting the exterior trim; lighting the historic plaque; putting on additions to connect the opera house with the neighboring Porter County Museum and expanding spaces; new entry hardscaping; streetlight poles; and improvements to stormwater drainage.

Plans for the first floor interior include: lobby upgrades; restroom relocation and expansion; box office relocation; new auditorium seating to replace the 60-year-old seats; updated finishes; accessible entrances; and a new multipurpose space. Exposing the original brick entrance arch from the new lobby interior will be a highlight of the design.

Second floor plans include: a lounge reconfiguration; moving and adding offices; new auditorium seating; updated finishes; and relocation of the control room. Classic color combinations, such as black and white hexagonal penny tiles, and various shades of teal for wall tiles and upholstery, were shown on a swatch board.

Infrastructure upgrades include: replacing the majority of the mechanical equipment; lighting upgrades and controls; new plumbing systems; and a fire alarm system. MacDonald said the current air conditioning unit is running on one-and-a-half condensers out of six, and administrative offices are not weather tight.

Porter County Council Member Sylvia Graham, D-At-large, was the first of several council members to say the plan was a big aesthetic improvement over previous iterations. “I really like how you’ve connected the building. In my opinion, we’ve got to move on this because it’s (the cost) only going to go up.”

“It’s greatly improved over previous designs,” echoed Jessen. Brad Brutout, project manager with Schmidt Associates, the architectural firm designing the renovations and additions, explained the glass and aluminum addition connecting the opera house and county museum was designed so that it could even be removed some day without affecting the integrity of the two original buildings.

Glass and metal were also chosen to merge the two buildings without having to introduce a third brick.

Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.