Downtown Rockford theater is set to get $3 million facelift. Here's what's being planned

New windows, a new fire escape and extensive exterior stone, brick, terra cotta and mortar repair and replacement could be coming soon to the city's crown jewel, the Coronado Performing Arts Center.

The Rockford City Council’s Finance and Personnel Committee on Monday approved contracts for restoration of the downtown theater's historic facade, bringing the project one step closer to construction.

City Council is expected to sign off on the contracts at its next meeting.

The committee voted to award a nearly $2.4 million contract to Berglund Construction Company to complete the facade restoration project, which began after a cast-concrete architectural detail fell off the facade in 2018, alerting the building’s managers to decades of wear and water damage.

Chicago-based Berglund was selected over AGAE Contractors, an Elk Grove Village-based firm that also bid on the project.

The committee also voted to award a $130,000 contract to Wiss, Janney, Elster Associates, Inc., to serve as a consultant for the project. WJE conducted an initial $18,000 study in 2019 to identify the root causes of facade damage.

The Coronado — which opened in 1927 and underwent a major restoration in 2001 — has long been an iconic feature of Rockford’s downtown.

Originally built for vaudeville performances and silent films, the theater now hosts comedy shows, orchestra concerts and Broadway musicals. The Coronado also holds programming for Rockford-area students and welcomes all Rockford Public Schools fourth-graders for a touring show each year.

Work on the facade began in 2020 with immediate repairs to masonry and stonework on the building’s exterior. In 2021, lightbulbs in the marquee were replaced. But the larger restoration project has yet to kick off.

Mitch Leatherby, Rockford’s street and transportation superintendent, said the city originally expected construction on the facade to finish in 2023. In summer 2022, the city had already secured a $720,265 grant from the Rebuild Illinois Public Infrastructure Grant Program, alongside additional state funding.

But when the city received an unexpected windfall — an additional $500,000 in grant funding from the state’s Tourism Attractions and Festival Grant Program — they expanded the scope of the project, delaying it by another two years.

Under the expanded plan, the city will replace the glass in the Coronado’s steel-framed windows, restore the windows themselves and replace the building’s fire escape and exterior doors.

The restorations will also involve work to maintain and replace the stone, brick, terra cotta and mortar that make up the facade.

In total, city staff estimate the project will cost just more than $3 million.

As much as possible, the restoration project will aim to refurbish existing elements of the facade, Leatherby said. But some pieces have fallen off over the years, and those will need to be replicated — for instance, with molds to fashion new terra cotta details.

“The idea is to keep it what it is, but keep it in its original historic state,” Leatherby said. “The idea is not to change what the exterior looks like.”

Beth Howard, the executive director of Friends of the Coronado, said she hopes the restoration will preserve the Coronado’s exterior for the next 25 years or more.

The goal, she says, is to sustain the theater for its next generation of patrons: “maintaining the historic elements of the theater, restoring what needs to be restored, but also protecting things that can be saved rather than waiting until they need to be recreated.”

Tilly Robinson is a summer reporting intern with the Gannett/USA Today Network at the Rockford Register Star. She can be reached via email at mrrobinson@gannett.com and on X @ tillyrobin .

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Downtown Rockford theater is set to get $3 million facelift. Here's what's being planned