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Civic Theatre Seeks $5.1 Million To Restore Aging Building

Development Director Brett Carr gives a short tour of the Civic Theatre after the announcement about the theatre's restoration.
Rebecca Thiele, WMUK

The view from the Civic Theatre's stage
Credit Rebecca Thiele, WMUK
The view from the Civic Theatre's stage

The Kalamazoo Civic Theatre is seeking $5.1 million to restore its building on South Street. Among other things, the theatre needs new heating and cooling systems in the building and several technology upgrades such as Wi-Fi and digital archives. 

One major ticket item is a new copper roof to replace the original one built in 1931. Executive Director for the Civic, Kristen Chesak says the leaky roof caused a lot of water damage.

“Instead of just continuing to repair as things rot, we really need to get in front of it and get these things replaced and repaired. So that in the long run it will cost us less, really,” says Chesak.

Maggie Zahrai co-chairs the Civic’s fundraising campaign. She says the Civic also wants to increase its endowment by one million dollars. Zahrai says this will help the theatre to fund these changes over time, without going back to major donors every few months.

“So to change a building like this amazing, old beautiful historic building to Wifi and all of this - it’s incredibly expensive and we want to do it right. So we want to be careful of going to our donors too often for big donations,” says Zahrai.

The Civic still has to raise $1.3 million to reach its $5.1 million goal. Campaign co-chair Mike Seeyle says the Civic is expecting $600,000 from an anonymous matching donor, who will be revealed by the Civic at the end of this month.

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