After receiving a demolition permit in early August, wrecking work on the former W. C. Reebie & Brother storage building at 5035 North Broadway in Uptown is underway. The contracting team of Milburn Demolition and Bulley & Andrews is working from the south façade, carving a hole into the side of the building and working their way inward.
TimeLine Theatre purchased the building in 2018, and is now doing the partial demo and renovation to create a lobby café and bar, a 250-seat flexible black box theatre that’s built to be transformative, and exhibit galleries designed to “support the immersive, interactive lobby experiences that are a TimeLine hallmark.” Backstage, there will be several areas tailored for collaboration and creation, including a rehearsal room, design and production studios, and staff offices, that fully support artists and staff in their work. The company’s Living History program will also have dedicated space for its engagement with students, and that space also will be available for community meetings and events.
Last month, a spokesman for TimeLine Theatre confirmed that only the front portion of the Reebie building would be demolished, despite there being no mention of this being a partial demolition in the permit’s language. A previous iteration of the renovation preserved the Broadway-facing façade, but that is no longer planned to be saved.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
This iteration of reuse is great but, boy, I wish they retained the original facade
I will unjustifiably upset about the facade of this building for years to come. They told the community they were going to preserve the front, which faciliated local aldermanic blessings etc, and then almost immediately annouced they were shocked and dismayed to discover the facace was structurally unstable. I call BS on that.
Your “calling BS on that” will surely thunder throughout the community and halls of power for years to come…