Renovation and adaptive reuse efforts restored a former theater into a modern performing arts center and spurred neighborhood revitalization.
Founded in 1990, Everyman Theatre is an equity theater with a professional repertory company of artists from the greater Baltimore / Washington, DC, area. In 2006, Everyman Theatre organization received the former Town Theatre building as a donation from Bank of America and the Harold Dawson Trust. The existing building (constructed in 1911 and designed by architects Otto Simonson and W.H. McElfatrick) previously served as the Empire, Palace, Esquire, and Town theaters, but was closed to the public for over 18 years.
Keast & Hood engineered the renovation and adaptive reuse of the 45,000-sf historic building into a new performing arts center. Amenities include a 250-seat studio theater stacked beneath a 200-seat black box theater, plus new scene shops, costume and prop facilities, and classroom spaces. Aside from the complexities of archaic structural systems found within the historic building, the team was tasked with significant acoustical difficulties stacking two isolated theaters above an operating metro train tunnel 50 feet below the building’s foundations.
The project was honored with Baltimore Heritage’s 2013 Adaptive Reuse and Compatible Design Award, Building Design + Construction magazine’s 2013 Silver Award, and the Structural Engineers Association of Metropolitan Washington’s 2013 Excellence in Structural Engineering Grand Award.
Renovation and adaptive reuse efforts restored a former theater into a modern performing arts center and spurred neighborhood revitalization.
Founded in 1990, Everyman Theatre is an equity theater with a professional repertory company of artists from the greater Baltimore / Washington, DC, area. In 2006, Everyman Theatre organization received the former Town Theatre building as a donation from Bank of America and the Harold Dawson Trust. The existing building (constructed in 1911 and designed by architects Otto Simonson and W.H. McElfatrick) previously served as the Empire, Palace, Esquire, and Town theaters, but was closed to the public for over 18 years.
Keast & Hood engineered the renovation and adaptive reuse of the 45,000-sf historic building into a new performing arts center. Amenities include a 250-seat studio theater stacked beneath a 200-seat black box theater, plus new scene shops, costume and prop facilities, and classroom spaces. Aside from the complexities of archaic structural systems found within the historic building, the team was tasked with significant acoustical difficulties stacking two isolated theaters above an operating metro train tunnel 50 feet below the building’s foundations.
The project was honored with Baltimore Heritage’s 2013 Adaptive Reuse and Compatible Design Award, Building Design + Construction magazine’s 2013 Silver Award, and the Structural Engineers Association of Metropolitan Washington’s 2013 Excellence in Structural Engineering Grand Award.
CLIENT: Cho Benn Holback + Associates, Inc.
LOCATION: Baltimore, MD
TYPE: Cultural, Historic, SERVICES: Adaptive Reuse, Renovation, Restoration, MATERIALS: Masonry, Steel, SUSTAINABILITY: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Completed project photography © Alan Gilbert Photography
