This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 14, 2008 - After months of work on a plan to reopen the long-dark Kiel Opera House in downtown St. Louis, the St. Louis Blues owners and McEagle Properties aren't ready yet to say that they can raise the curtain and put entertainment back on stage there. But they are continuing to move in that direction.
Details, at this point, are hard to come by. Officials at McEagle, the city of St. Louis and SCP Worldwide in New York, which owns the Blues, say they prefer planning behind the scenes for now. Before they make their plans public, they want to make sure that what's on the drawing boards will work.
"If and when we decide to go forward, it won't be secret," said Daniel Brungard, a spokesman for McEagle. "This is something we are very interested in getting done."
A peek behind the curtain
Despite the secrecy, sources and others involved with planning have confirmed some details of plans for the 3,500-seat Art Deco Opera House, four smaller adjoining assembly rooms -- each with a stage and its own entrance -- and the old Kiel Club area on a lower level. It's all been closed since 1991, when the attached Kiel Auditorium was demolished to make way for what's now Scottrade Center, a venue for Blues hockey, concerts and other entertainment.
In some respects, what SCP and McEagle have in mind is similar to what developer Donald Breckenridge planned to do there before he died in December 2005. Six months later, SCP acquired the Blues, Scottrade Center and the lease for the city-owned Opera House.
Earlier this year, SCP teamed with McEagle, a firm perhaps best known for building WingHaven, a planned community in O'Fallon, Mo. More recently, McEagle was at the center of controversy revolving around its acquisition of hundreds of parcels and properties in north St. Louis under various names, then failing to keep up many of the properties.
Like the late Breckenridge and his associates, SCP and McEagle are working toward putting Broadway shows, concerts and other entertainment into the Opera House, and a restaurant into the Kiel Club space. Breckenridge had estimated renovation costs at $25 million to $30 million. Brungard, at McEagle, wouldn't give a new estimate but said that $30 million is "very low" compared with today's estimates.
SCP and McEagle also are working with Martinez & Johnson Architecture in Washington, D.C., which drafted Breckenridge's renovation plan. The firm has done historic preservation planning for similar projects around the country, including the Boston Opera House, and cites Kiel Opera House on its webpage as "among America's finest performance venues."
Adam Field, a designer there, said the current plan is "pretty much similar" to the one done for Breckenridge.
Like the older plan, it calls mainly for cleaning, refurbishing and updating what was there when the complex opened in 1934. "It is in surprisingly good shape," Brungard said. "The first time I walked in, I was taken aback by how good of shape it was in."
Field said that even one of the smaller ornate assembly rooms, partitioned and made into municipal court offices years ago, likely can be refurbished. "Most of the original fabric is still there. There's been some damage, but we think we can work with it and bring it back," he said.
There are also, of course, major challenges ahead that SCP and McEagle are trying to work through.
The noise from the adjoining Scottrade Center, for example, sometimes intrudes into the Opera House. Breckenridge said the original sound barricade was destroyed when Kiel Auditorium was demolished.
Brungard said that "McEagle and the (Blues) owners have sound people at work on resolving the problem."
Parking is another problem. Breckenridge had hoped to build parking into a building just west of the Opera House. The city has since acquired the building from the federal government and intends to put city offices there.
One source said that SCP and McEagle have been talking with the city treasurer's office about more parking. So have representatives for Heisman Properties, a Los Angeles development firm planning to renovate the now-empty 99-year-old Municipal Courts building east of the Opera House. The source said one idea being tossed around is building a garage near both the Opera House and the Municipal Courts.
Perhaps an even bigger challenge for SCP and McEagle is on the financial end. They'll need money for renovating and more money later to cover operating and maintaining the building.
SCP and McEagle have been discussing that with St. Louis officials.
When asked if the city might help financially -- perhaps with tax increment financing or other public subsidy -- Barbara Geisman, the city's deputy mayor for development, said: "We don't know about financial assistance yet. We are continuing to talk with them."
One problem Breckenridge didn't have was opposition from Fox Associates. Fox Associates renovated and operates the 4,500-seat Fox Theatre in Grand Center. As part of Breckeridge's plan, Fox Associates was to book Broadway shows at the Opera House; what was then Clear Channel Entertainment was to book concerts and other entertainment.
This time around, things are different. SCP owns a significant piece of Running Subway, a New York-based entertainment company that produces and promotes theatrical shows and other entertainment, and it likely would do booking for the Opera House.
Rich Baker, president at Fox Associates, said his group has already told city officials that the newer plan for Broadway shows, concerts and the like at the Opera House simply won't work.
Baker said St. Louis now has more than enough concert venues and owners competing for concerts. As for Broadway shows, Baker said that the Fox now books mostly first-run shows, the Muny does revivals, and a third group going after the same shows would be too much. "They would be bidding against us, and maybe the Muny," he said, bidding up the cost of productions and "thus driving up ticket prices." He said he doubts that the Opera House would bring in enough revenue to survive, and that the city would be making a mistake by investing in that.
Geisman said she's aware of "concerns" at Fox Associates.
"We will, no doubt, be talking with the Fox as the discussions progress. I think the two need to be reconciled. But getting the Opera House reopened is very important," she said, "and we are excited about the prospects.
"I'm optimistic that they can do it, and one of the reasons is that they (SCP) had experience redoing Radio City Music Hall. They know what they are getting into with the Opera House, and they have connections in both the financing and the entertainment world."
Charlene Prost has covered development for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other publications.