May 1, 2006
Center stage | Augusta officials and developer Joe Cloutier want to renovate the Colonial Theater and build nearby housing to anchor a downtown revival
By Douglas Rooks
The Colonial Theater opened in 1913 on Water Street in downtown Augusta as one of central Maine's showpieces. In its heyday, the theater seated 1,400 and was the scene of countless live shows, plays and community events. After a long period of decline as a movie theater, the theater's doors closed in 1968 and have not reopened since.
The shell of the Colonial continues to loom between the Kennebec River and Water Street, and for decades has seemed to mark the end of the viable part of the capital's downtown. Yet the building that's long been seen as a white elephant is now the spot Augusta officials have in mind for a civic renewal initiative ˆ and their plans have acquired renewed credibility now that an experienced real estate firm, Realty Resources of Rockport, has taken an option on the Colonial Theater site.
With technical assistance from the city, Realty Resources is hoping to carry out a complete renovation and rehabilitation of the theater, turning it into a performing arts center that can attract audiences from the entire region. It's one of two downtown Augusta projects for Joseph Cloutier, president of Realty Resource, a developer who built his company on a series of housing projects throughout New England. He's taken on other seemingly high-risk projects before and succeeded ˆ most notably with the Freese's Building in Bangor, a once-grand department store that sat empty for more than a decade. It was revived in 1999 as the home for Children's Discovery Museum, which features housing units above.
The success of that project, and similar ventures in Bangor and in other New England cities, has convinced Cloutier that cities need to pursue housing as a form of economic reinvestment. "Leveraging housing dollars to rebuild the downtown is the best way to get the maximum out of your investment," he said during a tour of his downtown Augusta projects.
That theory is about to get another test. With the theater renovation at least a year away due to financing and technical issues, in May Realty Resources will begin construction just down the street on 24 units of "workforce housing" in an old Central Maine Power Co.
warehouse, another long-derelict building. Cloutier envisions younger families and lower-income workers welcoming the opportunity to live downtown and, in some cases, being able to walk to work. And because the CMP warehouse has for so long been just another blank space among Water Street facades, city officials hope it will get other developers, and current building owners, to look at their properties in a new way. "We're trying to turn people's perceptions around, that's for sure," said Bill Bridgeo, Augusta's city manager.
City living
Cloutier's plan for the CMP building was not, at first, an easy sell with the city council. To make the numbers work, Realty Resources sought and received last fall a 15-year tax increment financing agreement that will funnel half of the resulting property tax revenue back into the project. The Maine State Housing Authority also has allocated low-income housing tax credits to the project. Cloutier says rents will be market rate, although conditions of the MSHA agreement provide that they remain in the affordable category ˆ available to those making 60% of the area's median income.
Back in the 1980s, the city council approved a TIF district for the commercial development that eventually became The Marketplace at Augusta, a collection of big-box stores and smaller retailers just off I-95. But Augusta had not previously offered a TIF for housing, and some councilors were skeptical.
Donna Lerman, one of the councilors who supported the TIF, said she had to remind her colleagues that getting new development onto Water Street was one of the council's top priorities, and had been for five years. And for Bridgeo, it wasn't a difficult call. "It's a whole lot better getting 50% of the revenue than nothing, which was what we've had from that property," he said.
The housing project represents the first major attempt in Augusta to bring people back downtown to live and be customers of downtown businesses. This approach is one of the precepts of the "new urbanism" community development philosophy, and its attractions are obvious, considering the fate of previous downtown revival efforts in Augusta.
After a decade of failed plans ˆ one of which envisioned enclosing Water Street as a shopping mall ˆ downtown Augusta got a boost from the construction of the eight-story Key Bank building on Water Street in 1988, then the Maine headquarters for one of the state's largest commercial banks. Key Plaza, as it is called, prompted other downtown building owners to reinvest, but the movement petered out amid the severe recession of the early 1990s, and it never extended much beyond ground floor offices and retail space.
Key Bank eventually moved its operations to Portland; state offices now occupy most of Key Plaza.
Since then, Water Street has had mixed success. Developer Kevin Mattson of Harpers Development oversaw acquisition of the Key Bank building, and has just renovated a four-story building nearby that was formerly owned by Peachy Builders. A few restaurants have become fixtures, including Java Joe's and Beale Street Barbeque. More recently, a pub called Delia's opened in a space once occupied by a long-established restaurant called Hazel Green's, whose passing in the early 1990s marked the end of an earlier downtown era.
Although doubts remain about whether Augusta's downtown can ever regain its former prominence in the community, the success of those projects has convinced Augusta's economic development director, Mike Duguay, that the downtown has turned a corner. "We have people now, like Jed Davis at Nicholson & Ryan (jewelers) and Mike Quigg at Beale Street, who understand how downtowns work. They're not just there because it's cheap space," he said.
In Duguay's view, a downtown can't compete with the lower rents and more ample parking available in shopping centers at the outskirts of town. "You have to create a niche, and make it unique," he said. "But it is [unique] ˆ in every community, there's only one downtown."
Cloutier said that shift in thinking, building on the downtown's history and its centrality, will be crucial to sustaining redevelopment there. "It's always going to cost more to work with what is there. We could have torn down the warehouse and put up something that would be cheaper to build," he said. "But that discounts all the history and what people actually want to see downtown."
Just like starting over
With the housing project proceeding, attention is shifting back to the theater plan ˆ and it's clear that it will take a lot of effort for the Colonial Theater to rise again. Inside, the floor has fallen into the basement near the old stage, and the roof "is in the shape you'd expect after 30 years," said Ed Marsh, senior development officer for Realty Resources and the project manager.
Amid the general decay, though, visitors can see some potential. During a recent tour of the building, Lerman points out decorative molding at the top of the walls that looks salvageable. The removal of some of the soundproofing installed during its movie theater days also revealed hand-painted murals and elegant hardwood paneling.
Marsh doesn't mince words about what would have to be done. "The balcony is intact, and the stair towers, and the lobby is okay, too," he said. "But everything toward the river will have to go. For half the building, we really would be starting over."
Marsh said the current estimate for renovation into an 800-1,000-seat performing arts center would cost $6.5 million, "but that's without the final engineering." Cloutier thinks the price tag could reach $7-$8 million, and Marsh doesn't disagree.
The city has already made it clear it isn't ready for a major financial investment in such a project, and Cloutier said he doesn't expect one. He plans to employ historic preservation tax credits ˆ a staple for many similar projects ˆ and also a federal program called New Market Tax Credits, which primarily are targeted toward low-income housing needs but are also available for civic projects like the theater. The program hasn't been used yet in Maine for such a project.
With such incentives, Cloutier believes he can make the numbers work. "This project has to be able to stand on its own, to produce enough business so that it can make money," he said. "Otherwise you'll fix the building, but then see it go right back into decline."
Managing the theater once it is renovated likely would fall to a nonprofit organization, which is something Donna Lerman is working to develop along with the Colonial Theater Steering Committee. That group has 16 members, including two of Augusta's state representatives, Kim Davis and Arthur Lerman, Sen. Elizabeth Mitchell, attorney Roger Katz, and businessman Roger Pomerleau. "Everyone I've asked has wanted to join," Lerman said. "This is something the community really wants to see happen."
The committee has been considering possible uses, but Cloutier thinks that live theater, concerts and movies are among the most likely to succeed. "What we're talking about is Merrill Auditorium north," he said, referring to the theater attached to Portland City Hall, which was renovated in the mid-1990s.
Among the institutions that have expressed interest in the Colonial Theater, Cloutier said, are the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, The Theater at Monmouth ˆ which produces plays at Cumston Hall in summer but is looking for a winter venue ˆ and the University of Maine at Augusta. UMA has a respected jazz music program, and has observed the growing relationship between the University of Maine and Bangor. The University of Maine art museum has moved downtown, as have the University of Maine System offices. "Colleges thrive on downtown connections," Cloutier said. "This is a more natural home to many young people than an isolated campus."
Naturally, he sees downtown Augusta as possible living space for UMA students. The university campus is trying to expand its four-year programs, but until a few years ago had no dormitories; it now has one. There has to be a catalyst for all these organizations to come together, and the theater project could be the necessary ingredient, Cloutier said. "If you give people a reason to come back downtown, they will. And businesses follow people," he said.
To make it happen, though, Cloutier needs to line up financing. Realty Resources will put up only part of the necessary capital and is seeking additional investors. It has performed preliminary engineering work to establish a project cost, but will need further study on stabilizing the structure and requirements to meet building and life safety codes. For that reason, it will be at least a year before Realty Resources makes a final decision to go ahead.
But even though most of Realty Resources' previous projects are related to housing, some in the city believe Cloutier is the right developer to finally pull together a plan to revive the theater. "There aren't a lot of developers who can figure out how to do this, but he can," said Duguay.
In addition to the Freese's building, where Cloutier included both elderly and assisted living units in separate phases, Duguay was impressed by redevelopment of the old Stearns High School building in Millinocket, which includes several shops and offices on the ground floor. "That was primarily housing, yes, but it also added things of value to the community that make it central to that downtown," Duguay said. "He cobbled together a lot of uses to make it work."
After exiting the theater, the daylight seemed particularly bright, and the chill indoors yielded to late-spring temperatures on the sidewalk. A passerby in a wheelchair asked if something's going to happen with the theater, and hearing that it may, gave a thumbs-up.
"It's always like that," Lerman said. "We're getting over a lot of the negativism that's existed around downtown. A lot of people grew up on Water Street, and now they realize we can bring it back."
She looked up at the historic building plaque and noted the 1913 date. After hearing Cloutier's estimate that the project could move forward next year, she said, "That will give us plenty of time to plan for the centennial."
The shell of the Colonial continues to loom between the Kennebec River and Water Street, and for decades has seemed to mark the end of the viable part of the capital's downtown. Yet the building that's long been seen as a white elephant is now the spot Augusta officials have in mind for a civic renewal initiative ˆ and their plans have acquired renewed credibility now that an experienced real estate firm, Realty Resources of Rockport, has taken an option on the Colonial Theater site.
With technical assistance from the city, Realty Resources is hoping to carry out a complete renovation and rehabilitation of the theater, turning it into a performing arts center that can attract audiences from the entire region. It's one of two downtown Augusta projects for Joseph Cloutier, president of Realty Resource, a developer who built his company on a series of housing projects throughout New England. He's taken on other seemingly high-risk projects before and succeeded ˆ most notably with the Freese's Building in Bangor, a once-grand department store that sat empty for more than a decade. It was revived in 1999 as the home for Children's Discovery Museum, which features housing units above.
The success of that project, and similar ventures in Bangor and in other New England cities, has convinced Cloutier that cities need to pursue housing as a form of economic reinvestment. "Leveraging housing dollars to rebuild the downtown is the best way to get the maximum out of your investment," he said during a tour of his downtown Augusta projects.
That theory is about to get another test. With the theater renovation at least a year away due to financing and technical issues, in May Realty Resources will begin construction just down the street on 24 units of "workforce housing" in an old Central Maine Power Co.
warehouse, another long-derelict building. Cloutier envisions younger families and lower-income workers welcoming the opportunity to live downtown and, in some cases, being able to walk to work. And because the CMP warehouse has for so long been just another blank space among Water Street facades, city officials hope it will get other developers, and current building owners, to look at their properties in a new way. "We're trying to turn people's perceptions around, that's for sure," said Bill Bridgeo, Augusta's city manager.
City living
Cloutier's plan for the CMP building was not, at first, an easy sell with the city council. To make the numbers work, Realty Resources sought and received last fall a 15-year tax increment financing agreement that will funnel half of the resulting property tax revenue back into the project. The Maine State Housing Authority also has allocated low-income housing tax credits to the project. Cloutier says rents will be market rate, although conditions of the MSHA agreement provide that they remain in the affordable category ˆ available to those making 60% of the area's median income.
Back in the 1980s, the city council approved a TIF district for the commercial development that eventually became The Marketplace at Augusta, a collection of big-box stores and smaller retailers just off I-95. But Augusta had not previously offered a TIF for housing, and some councilors were skeptical.
Donna Lerman, one of the councilors who supported the TIF, said she had to remind her colleagues that getting new development onto Water Street was one of the council's top priorities, and had been for five years. And for Bridgeo, it wasn't a difficult call. "It's a whole lot better getting 50% of the revenue than nothing, which was what we've had from that property," he said.
The housing project represents the first major attempt in Augusta to bring people back downtown to live and be customers of downtown businesses. This approach is one of the precepts of the "new urbanism" community development philosophy, and its attractions are obvious, considering the fate of previous downtown revival efforts in Augusta.
After a decade of failed plans ˆ one of which envisioned enclosing Water Street as a shopping mall ˆ downtown Augusta got a boost from the construction of the eight-story Key Bank building on Water Street in 1988, then the Maine headquarters for one of the state's largest commercial banks. Key Plaza, as it is called, prompted other downtown building owners to reinvest, but the movement petered out amid the severe recession of the early 1990s, and it never extended much beyond ground floor offices and retail space.
Key Bank eventually moved its operations to Portland; state offices now occupy most of Key Plaza.
Since then, Water Street has had mixed success. Developer Kevin Mattson of Harpers Development oversaw acquisition of the Key Bank building, and has just renovated a four-story building nearby that was formerly owned by Peachy Builders. A few restaurants have become fixtures, including Java Joe's and Beale Street Barbeque. More recently, a pub called Delia's opened in a space once occupied by a long-established restaurant called Hazel Green's, whose passing in the early 1990s marked the end of an earlier downtown era.
Although doubts remain about whether Augusta's downtown can ever regain its former prominence in the community, the success of those projects has convinced Augusta's economic development director, Mike Duguay, that the downtown has turned a corner. "We have people now, like Jed Davis at Nicholson & Ryan (jewelers) and Mike Quigg at Beale Street, who understand how downtowns work. They're not just there because it's cheap space," he said.
In Duguay's view, a downtown can't compete with the lower rents and more ample parking available in shopping centers at the outskirts of town. "You have to create a niche, and make it unique," he said. "But it is [unique] ˆ in every community, there's only one downtown."
Cloutier said that shift in thinking, building on the downtown's history and its centrality, will be crucial to sustaining redevelopment there. "It's always going to cost more to work with what is there. We could have torn down the warehouse and put up something that would be cheaper to build," he said. "But that discounts all the history and what people actually want to see downtown."
Just like starting over
With the housing project proceeding, attention is shifting back to the theater plan ˆ and it's clear that it will take a lot of effort for the Colonial Theater to rise again. Inside, the floor has fallen into the basement near the old stage, and the roof "is in the shape you'd expect after 30 years," said Ed Marsh, senior development officer for Realty Resources and the project manager.
Amid the general decay, though, visitors can see some potential. During a recent tour of the building, Lerman points out decorative molding at the top of the walls that looks salvageable. The removal of some of the soundproofing installed during its movie theater days also revealed hand-painted murals and elegant hardwood paneling.
Marsh doesn't mince words about what would have to be done. "The balcony is intact, and the stair towers, and the lobby is okay, too," he said. "But everything toward the river will have to go. For half the building, we really would be starting over."
Marsh said the current estimate for renovation into an 800-1,000-seat performing arts center would cost $6.5 million, "but that's without the final engineering." Cloutier thinks the price tag could reach $7-$8 million, and Marsh doesn't disagree.
The city has already made it clear it isn't ready for a major financial investment in such a project, and Cloutier said he doesn't expect one. He plans to employ historic preservation tax credits ˆ a staple for many similar projects ˆ and also a federal program called New Market Tax Credits, which primarily are targeted toward low-income housing needs but are also available for civic projects like the theater. The program hasn't been used yet in Maine for such a project.
With such incentives, Cloutier believes he can make the numbers work. "This project has to be able to stand on its own, to produce enough business so that it can make money," he said. "Otherwise you'll fix the building, but then see it go right back into decline."
Managing the theater once it is renovated likely would fall to a nonprofit organization, which is something Donna Lerman is working to develop along with the Colonial Theater Steering Committee. That group has 16 members, including two of Augusta's state representatives, Kim Davis and Arthur Lerman, Sen. Elizabeth Mitchell, attorney Roger Katz, and businessman Roger Pomerleau. "Everyone I've asked has wanted to join," Lerman said. "This is something the community really wants to see happen."
The committee has been considering possible uses, but Cloutier thinks that live theater, concerts and movies are among the most likely to succeed. "What we're talking about is Merrill Auditorium north," he said, referring to the theater attached to Portland City Hall, which was renovated in the mid-1990s.
Among the institutions that have expressed interest in the Colonial Theater, Cloutier said, are the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, The Theater at Monmouth ˆ which produces plays at Cumston Hall in summer but is looking for a winter venue ˆ and the University of Maine at Augusta. UMA has a respected jazz music program, and has observed the growing relationship between the University of Maine and Bangor. The University of Maine art museum has moved downtown, as have the University of Maine System offices. "Colleges thrive on downtown connections," Cloutier said. "This is a more natural home to many young people than an isolated campus."
Naturally, he sees downtown Augusta as possible living space for UMA students. The university campus is trying to expand its four-year programs, but until a few years ago had no dormitories; it now has one. There has to be a catalyst for all these organizations to come together, and the theater project could be the necessary ingredient, Cloutier said. "If you give people a reason to come back downtown, they will. And businesses follow people," he said.
To make it happen, though, Cloutier needs to line up financing. Realty Resources will put up only part of the necessary capital and is seeking additional investors. It has performed preliminary engineering work to establish a project cost, but will need further study on stabilizing the structure and requirements to meet building and life safety codes. For that reason, it will be at least a year before Realty Resources makes a final decision to go ahead.
But even though most of Realty Resources' previous projects are related to housing, some in the city believe Cloutier is the right developer to finally pull together a plan to revive the theater. "There aren't a lot of developers who can figure out how to do this, but he can," said Duguay.
In addition to the Freese's building, where Cloutier included both elderly and assisted living units in separate phases, Duguay was impressed by redevelopment of the old Stearns High School building in Millinocket, which includes several shops and offices on the ground floor. "That was primarily housing, yes, but it also added things of value to the community that make it central to that downtown," Duguay said. "He cobbled together a lot of uses to make it work."
After exiting the theater, the daylight seemed particularly bright, and the chill indoors yielded to late-spring temperatures on the sidewalk. A passerby in a wheelchair asked if something's going to happen with the theater, and hearing that it may, gave a thumbs-up.
"It's always like that," Lerman said. "We're getting over a lot of the negativism that's existed around downtown. A lot of people grew up on Water Street, and now they realize we can bring it back."
She looked up at the historic building plaque and noted the 1913 date. After hearing Cloutier's estimate that the project could move forward next year, she said, "That will give us plenty of time to plan for the centennial."
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