Certain projects are destined to make a powerful impact on a neighborhood. And that’s what McHugh Construction‘s adaptive reuse of Chicago’s historic Ramova Theatre is already doing in the Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport.
McHugh Construction completed its $30 million adaptive reuse of the Bridgeport theater late last year, with the theater hosting its first live performance, Slo ‘Mo, a Chicago-based LGBTQ-centered dance party, on New Year’s Eve of 2023. McHugh’s work has transformed the Ramova Theatre from a long-shuttered single-screen cinema to an 1,800-person concert hall that is once again a landmark at its location of 3510-3520 S. Halsted St. in Bridgeport.
This is important not only for Bridgeport but for the neighborhood’s Halsted Street corridor, too. The section of Halsted surrounding the then-closed Ramova was dotted with empty storefronts. The hope is that the energy brought by the renovated Ramova will provide a boost to this section of Halsted, encouraging new businesses to locate here.
“Everyone is so excited about this,” said Andrew Totten, vice president of McHugh Construction, who spent long hours working on this two-year adaptive re-use project. “All the way through the construction process, people in the neighborhood were just so excited about this. They’d walk up and say, ‘My sister used to work here,’ or ‘We had our first date here. Can we just poke our head in?’ It was such a part of childhood for so many people in that neighborhood.”
The renovated Ramova was a long time coming. The theater closed in 1985, after showing the movie Police Academy 2. It wasn’t exactly a glorious ending for a movie palace that first opened its doors in 1929.
The Ramova Theatre was an iconic building in Bridgeport thanks to its neon red marquee and Spanish-inspired architecture. In the ’80s, though, the theater struggled to compete with newer multi-screen movie houses. That led to its eventual closure. It’s also why the new Ramova is a concert hall and not a movie theater: Independent theaters today can’t compete with multi-screen chain movie houses.
After sitting dormant for nearly 40 years, the Ramova was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. That turned out to be a good year for the theater: It was the same year in which McHugh began its work on the building’s restoration and adaptive re-use.
McHugh didn’t just create a concert hall at the Ramova. The company also built out space for Other Half Brewing, an independent craft brewery and taproom; Ramova Grill, an 18-seat diner; and Ramova Loft, a second-floor 200-person event venue.
Totten told Illinois Real Estate Journal that when he and the construction crew first arrived on the site, it was like opening a time capsule. The theater’s ticket booth was still in place. The same curtains from the day the theater closed still hung from the ceiling.
The McHugh team also discovered just how much work it had in front of it, too, that day. As Totten said, the Ramova was in a serious state of disrepair after its many years of neglect. Severe water damage destroyed large areas of the plaster ceiling, and the terracotta façade on Halsted Street was missing several pieces.
“The state that it was in was incredible,” Totten said. “There were portions of the roof that were open to the sky for years. There were places where the plaster was completely gone. The ceiling had collapsed in some places and had turned to sand that covered the floor. You were walking ankle-deep in it.”
For more than two years, McHugh Construction worked with project architect O’Riley Office, Baum Revision and historic preservation specialists to restore the intricate architectural details that had long made the Ramova’s original Spanish courtyard-style lobby and auditorium such a stunning place.
Construction crews restored the theater’s pale-yellow stucco-style walls, red-notched archways and columns and decorative bronze wrought-iron faux windows and balconies. McHugh also oversaw the restoration of the former movie palace’s clay-tile roof line and midnight-blue ceiling.
Crews ripped out the Ramova’s old movie theater seats, replacing them with a 22,000-square-foot barrier-free multi-level concrete floor that faces a large performance stage. Rows of spotlights now hang from the ceiling, casting multi-colored glows throughout the concert hall. The venue’s high-tech speaker system amplifies the onstage vocals and instruments. Construction workers installed multiple bars in the back of the auditorium and restored a second-floor balcony.
Tyler Nevius, developer of the Ramova, said that the restoration was a needed one for the often-neglected South Side of the city.
“The South Side of Chicago is home to the majority of local artists, but it has the least amount of high-quality space for them to perform and hone their craft,” Nevius said in a statement. “The city needed this and the South Side needed this.”
The renovations included the addition of a new green room designed with the goal of attracting top talent to Bridgeport. This new green room contains four separate suites – each with full baths – and an office for tour managers. To protect artists from paparazzi and unauthorized personnel, McHugh created direct paths for touring vehicles to arrive, unload equipment and privately access the greenroom and performance area.
“We wanted to create a place where artists would want to come and perform,” Nevius said in a statement. “One that looks great, sounds even better and where people can enjoy a show in comfort.”
Nevius said that it was important, too, to hire local tradespeople for the adaptive re-use project.
“It was important to us to have our teams reflect the community we’re a part of,” Nevius said.
The adaptive reuse project was funded by investments from the local populace, tax-increment financing subsidies from the city of Chicago, a state grant and a Historic Places loan.
Totten has been with McHugh for 26 years, and his focus during this time has been on the sports and entertainment side of the construction industry. He has worked on projects at Chicago’s Navy Pier, including the Sable Hotel at the end of the pier, and has lent his expertise to restoration projects on a variety of performance spaces across the Chicago market.
Few projects, though, presented the same challenges that McHugh faced on the Ramova.
“When we first got there, it was like stepping back in time,” Totten said. “We saw just how much work had to be done. So, we went to work. And looking at it now, it’s been an extremely satisfying project.”