Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts Pontiac Mi

It's driblet-dead gorgeous -- after a $20-million renovation that included millions in state and federal aid.

And it just earned top honors from Michigan'south Function of Country Historic Preservation. Withal, Pontiac's Flagstar Strand Theatre, intended to jump-start the renaissance of downtown Pontiac, is oft empty.

Although the 895-seat theater has a roster of private rentals and open-house events on its calendar, the website shows simply one "ticketed" public upshot for May – a concert of bottom-known Illinois-based rockers called Chicago Dejection Fustigate, on May 19. Next up, there's not a ticketed show scheduled until June 2, when a Michael Jackson tribute ring goes onstage.

That's non a playbill likely to put the celebrated Flagstar Strand, or for that matter downtown Pontiac itself, back on the mental maps of Oakland County's flush, concert-hungry residents. The canton is experiencing a soaring task market and rising incomes, although the Flagstar Strand seems so far unable to leverage that.

But that'southward starting to change, said the theater'southward owners – multi-talented Lake Orion programmer Kyle Westberg and his brother Brent Westberg, who after two decades of failures by others pulled off what preservation buffs consider a heroic feat: lining up intricate financing, restoring a 1921 theater to every inch of its former grandeur, and bringing the sometime building upwardly to today'due south safety and edifice standards amid a downtown aching for revival.

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After the Westbergs went all in and largely had the renovation done in 2016, a key office of boosted financing came from Troy-based Flagstar Bank. According to a argument from bank spokeswoman Susan Bergesen, Flagstar "made a $10-million, five-year, multi-faceted investment in Pontiac. The investment included the naming rights and ongoing fiscal support for the Flagstar Strand, as well as funding for homeownership, economical development, and financial capability," according to banking company spokeswoman Susan Bergesen.

"The ticketed events, yep, we're a little low on," conceded Kyle Westberg, president and CEO of West Construction Services, which did the honour-winning renovation. He was quick to give credit to co-winner of the accolade, preservation architect Brian Gill of Pontiac-based TDG Architects.

"We're in the process of hiring a promoter in the next month to have more of those events. Just we're pretty busy with community events, and that's a big part of the role we hoped to play here," Westberg said last week, citing the impending visit of 1,000 schoolchildren from Pontiac elementary schools afterward this month to watch performances of their classmates. It can take years to build up a following of concert goers for a rehabbed theater, he added.

The theater's operating entity, Encore Performing Arts Centre, is a nonprofit organization. On Friday, the theater was one of a dozen costless-admission sites participating in the city'south get-go Pontiac Arts & Civilization Clamber, said Pontiac Mayor Deirdre Waterman.

"People flocked to various venues in our downtown," including the Flagstar Strand Theatre, to see the artwork and hear alive music, Waterman said. Although there is plentiful parking near the Flagstar Strand, helping to boost it volition be the availability of many more spaces when the downtown's long-barricaded Phoenix Center parking structure gets long-awaited renovations and reopens, she said.

Waterman said it was too early to set a engagement for reopening the structure, simply revealed that she'd "inked a deal" last week with owners of the construction's adjoining role towers, who have been in court with the metropolis for years. Mediator for the tentative understanding? None other than retired Estimate Gerald Rosen of "k bargain" fame in Detroit's bankruptcy settlement.

Pontiac'south downtown has waited decades for the comeback of both sites – the Flagstar Strand and the Phoenix, Waterman said.

The state official who granted the state'south top preservation awards last calendar week said the theater is an unqualified success. The Strand "illustrates the way historic rehabilitation can revitalize an expanse. There are more people downtown, more evolution is going on and people are looking at Pontiac differently," Country Historic Preservation Officeholder Brian Conway said in a statement last week.

As well receiving Conway'due south recognition were the Woods Artillery Apartments in Detroit, also every bit a grouping that oversees the preservation of lighthouses in the Upper Peninsula, and a former 1915 orphanage-turned-new flat complex in the UP'south Marquette.

Yet, there is no arguing with a cash register. It was too few cha-chings that final year drove the regionally famous Slow'due south Barbecue from its space inside the Flagstar Strand Theatre, later on operating there less than a year.

"We loved the venue but sales were just not roofing our expenses," said Phil Cooley, co-owner of Slow's Charcoal-broil, which has restaurants in Detroit's Corktown and at Ford Field, as well as a accept-out spot in Midtown and some other eating place in One thousand Rapids. Although the Slow'south sign yet hangs exterior the Flagstar Strand's forepart doors, and Slow's Charcoal-broil staff still provide food and beverage service for special events there, the full-scale 150-seat restaurant within the theater is dark.

"When they had shows, we did real well. We love Pontiac and I really respect the preservation at that place. We might come up dorsum. What it would take is more shows" bringing ticket-ownership concert goers, Cooley said.

The Stand's sparse omnipresence "is a business organization for all of us," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said concluding week.

"It'south really a small Fox Theatre and it's simply as 1000. They actually did a fantastic chore of restoring information technology," Patterson said.

"I don't retrieve people are going there in any great numbers considering they don't know how nice it is. If we lose it, that would be an incalculable loss to the efforts to revive Pontiac," he said. It would as well be a loss to taxpayers, who would see $3.four one thousand thousand in federal tax credits evaporate, according to the Michigan State Housing Development Say-so, which oversaw $xvi.9 one thousand thousand in direct investment in the project. Additional funding came from a state low-interest loan and state grant, although figures were not available last week.

Oakland County government will continue to back up the Flagstar Strand Theatre, Patterson said. On Thursday, half-dozen-ix p.thou., the canton volition use the theater for a second sequent yr to host its annual Master Street Oakland County awards, attended by hundreds of community and business leaders.

The event honors downtown districts that are flourishing by mixing preservation with investment, exactly the epitome Pontiac officials hoped would occur with the Flagstar Strand. Pontiac is one of 23 county communities enrolled in the county's Main Street programme of economic assistance and communication. ($35 tickets can exist purchased through Tuesday at AdvantageOakland.EventBrite.com).

"Terminal year, nosotros had a great program, hundreds of attendees, and everyone was really impressed with the beauty of the theater," Patterson said.

"On my way out, I said to 1 of the girls on duty, 'See you next year.' And she said, 'I promise we're withal here.' That had me kind of worried," he said.

Too at terminal year's event, Patterson awarded the theater the canton'south Game Changer award -- fifty-fifty though the game in Pontiac'due south downtown had yet to modify much.

Now, a year later, in that location'due south promise on all sides that the glorious restoration could still do that, in a downtown that has waited a long time.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com

If you're going

Tickets are $19 to $49 for the Flagstar Strand Theatre's "Chicago Blues Fustigate," at vii p.g. on May nineteen, starring the Nick Moss Band, Mike Wheeler and the Corey Dennison Band. Visit www.flagstarstrand.com.

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Source: https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/2018/05/06/historic-renovation-strand-theater-pontiac/583732002/

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