Plans To Remake Historic Stevens Point Theater In Peril After Demolition Order

Advocates of a plan to turn a historic theater in downtown Stevens Point into a maker space and community hub are scrambling for more time in the wake of a city order to demolish the building.

The Fox Theater opened in 1894 as the Grand Opera House. Through the years, the space hosted vaudeville shows, silent movies and golden-age Hollywood films. But it’s been vacant since the mid-1980s and the subject of planned renovation efforts that never quite launched.

Renovations are one thing, said Greg Wright, executive director of the nonprofit CREATE Portage County, but what the Fox Theater really needed was a reinvention.

In April, CREATE announced a $3.5 million plan to turn the vacant theater into the home of its IDEA Center, an ambitious space that serves as a coworking space, a business incubator and a place for arts and community groups to meet. The nonprofit has raised nearly $1 million already.

But now, those plans are at risk after a city inspector in July issued an order that, unless CREATE can address structural concerns, the building will be demolished at the end of October.

“We were surprised by the timing of the raze order given that we were actively in the process of the capital campaign when it came out,” Wright said. “We are doing our best to both slow that process down and to raise as much money as quickly as we can because of that. It definitely was a hurdle we did not need.”

Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. When the city’s order was first released, he told the Portage County Gazette that “safety is a huge concern right now.”

Wright said CREATE is exploring options for appeals, both on locally and at the state level. The city’s Historic Preservation and Design Review Commission this month unanimously recommended that the city reverse its decision, but that recommendation is nonbinding. And at the same time, they’re trying to raise as much money as they can as quickly as they can to try to keep the idea of renovating the historic space alive.

Stevens Point is far from the only community facing questions about what to do with a historic theater site. Efforts to restore or reopen theaters have been seen across Wisconsin, including in cities such as Stoughton, Darlington and Richland Center. Wright said that feasibility studies have shown that if the sites are simply restored as theaters, it’s commonly the case that they won’t work as self-sustaining businesses.

“We can make a pretty strong argument that what we’re doing is the best way to honor the history of this building, of all the concepts we’ve come up with in the past,” he said.

To Wright, the downtown theater is the perfect home for the IDEA Center. That project is about three years old in Stevens Point, and Wright said it has launched some 50 new businesses and served as a home for groups of wood carvers, jewelry makers, fabric artists, video producers and more. About 200 people use the IDEA Center each month. But it’s in a temporary space owned by the county, an arrangement that won’t last forever.

“Small cities across this state are trying to figure out how to attract and retain the next generation of workers, and businesses across the state are concerned about the workforce shortages that we’re seeing in various regions,” Wright said. “We have a project that is ready to go, that is poised to have an impact on that specific space.”

The prospect of demolition of the site, he said, has focused attention on CREATE’s efforts, and he hopes to use that attention to raise enough funding to keep the renovation plans alive. The challenge, he said, is that “it’s shifted everyone’s attention to the building, and not the project.

“We’ve very excited about this project,” he said, referring to the growth of the IDEA Center itself. “We believe that what we’re doing is a really smart investment not just for Stevens Point, but for all of central Wisconsin.”

For more information about the renovation plans, visit anewfox.com.