Norwich Arts Center celebrates gallery reopening after renovations

Norwich ― The Norwich Arts Council on Friday morning cut a big, red ribbon to reopen the main floor art gallery even as upgrades to the historic building remain ongoing.

Critical structural repairs and extensive interior work to 60-64 Broadway, funded by a $500,000 state grant, included pouring concrete to shore up the sagging foundation, ripping up rotted floors, repointing brickwork, replacing electrical and heating systems and adding a badly needed new roof.

Electrical work continues on the third-floor theater, which will remain closed for July.

As prominently located as the 1891 three-story structure is, and as active as the 37-year-old all-volunteer organization has been, members hear the same refrain every time they host a major event.

NAC board of directors co-president Faye Ringel recounted some of the most frequent comments during the grand opening ceremony Friday morning, such as “How long have you been here?” and “I didn’t know you were here.”

Gabe Lipman, co-president of the Norwich Arts Center artists’ collective, said the group didn’t want to continue to stay closed even though not everything was finished.

“Let’s get moving here. We were out of circulation for too long,” he said.

The Greater Norwich Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a grand opening ceremony Friday morning for the annual Juried Members Art Show for arts collective members. The show will be open from noon to 4 p.m. Thursday to Saturday through July 27.

The Norwich Arts Center has put out a call on its website, norwicharts.org, for entries for an open art show to be featured in August.

The theater will reopen in August with a children’s show, “My Name is Rumpelstiltskin,” followed by a youth karaoke program, with competitions and performances co-sponsored by Norwich Youth, Family and Recreation Department.

Norwich Arts Center was one of four historic building owners to receive state grants last year for critical renovations. Center leaders credited state Sen. Cathy Osten and state Rep. Kevin Ryan, one of the founding members of the group in 1987, for the $500,000 grant they said saved the building from potential closure.

Osten, a frequent attendee at NAC events, said the legislature decided last year to start putting “real dollars” into downtown Norwich infrastructure, including $500,000 each for NAC and Chestnut Street Playhouse.

“The worst thing that could happen is to see a beautiful old building like this building fall down because they didn’t have the resources to take care of the necessary things like the unsexy roof that got done, (and) stabilizing the basement so that when you walked in you weren’t on a roller coaster ride,” Osten said.

Ryan said he was an NAC board member when the group was “just talking about” the idea of opening the third-floor auditorium, now the Donald Oat Theater, that now regularly hosts concerts, plays and other performances.

“(It is) an incredible influx,” Ryan said of the grant, “that really, I think, made the difference and ensured that this facility would turn the corner and be here for a long time coming for the future, providing arts entertainment to this region in so many different ways.”

Once the grant was secured, Ringel said the center had trouble finding a contractor. She praised W.R. Allen Co. of Montville for stepping up.

Friday’s celebration mainly centered on Gallery 1, the left side of the front entrance. Lipman said the front door to the gallery had to be closed for a time due to the structural problems. The rear former office area has been opened into gallery space through an archway opening. Another archway connects galleries 1 and 2.

When the center opened, a hairdresser and later Kokopelli coffee shop occupied what is now Gallery 2. Kokopelli’s name remains in a stained-glass window above the Gallery 2 door.

Ron Bates and Jim Marshall, members of the building committee and Board of Directors, said new cabinetry, paint and gallery lighting were visible in addition to the structural work. More renovations were done to the second-floor offices and the third-floor theater will get new LED lighting, and the sound system will be upgraded from analog to digital.

Structural repairs alone were over $200,000, Bates said.

“There’s a lot of money under the floor,” Bates said. “We’re hoping it can last another 100 years.”

c.bessette@theday.com