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The auditorium chandelier at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, with its crystal beads and dozens of lights, was slowly lowered by cable last week, stopping just a few feet above the floor. This time it wasn’t just to change the bulbs.
This time the auditorium floor had already been stripped of 1,200 red-velvet seats. Construction crew members were tossing broken pieces of walls out upper-floor windows into a dumpster down on Spring Street. This time the 101-year-old theater downtown was being gutted for renovation expected to cost $37 million and be completed in time for opening at the end of 2025, or early 2026.
The first crews arrived late last month to begin refurbishing one of downtown New Bedford’s main cultural attractions. The building that opened as a vaudeville house in the spring of 1923 is being remade: some portions restored to their original appearance, most others updated with contemporary amenities and more space for classes, events, and other gatherings.
Public fanfare to launch the project did not take place until about a week after the work began inside.
“Just got a tingle up my spine,” Zeiterion Executive Director Rosemary Gill said on the morning of June 28, as a crowd of nearly 200 gathered for a ceremonial “wall-breaking” under a white tent outside the theater front door on Purchase Street. She said she was thinking that, yes — seven years after a glimmer of a renovation plan took shape, it was happening, it was really happening.
“I’m literally on the verge of tears … honestly, the sheer gratitude for this incredible community,” Gill said in an interview, as an eight-piece brass band played and folks took their seats, sipped coffee, and nibbled pastries.
The tears came later during remarks from the podium by local and state officials, the Zeiterion board chair and people who have been engaged in the project all along. Those included Deborah Baker, who with her husband, Ben Baker, a former city planner and aide to former Mayor John Bullard, financed the first study in 2017 of a possible renovation, including figuring out how to pay for it.
“This has been quite a ride,” Baker, a Zeiterion board member emeritus who co-chairs the Zeiterion Capital Campaign Committee, told the crowd. “I am beyond delighted. Ben would be very proud, too,” she said, referring to her late husband, who died in January at 84.
Mayor Jon Mitchell called the project a “hell of an investment” with a big return to come. He said the effort — which the city supported with a $7.6 million contribution, mostly from federal funds — would benefit the city and downtown.
“It’s the hotels, it’s the restaurants,” Mitchell said, noting how tough it was to reserve a table at certain restaurants on Zeiterion performance nights. “It is the educational opportunities for New Bedford school children,” he said. Investing in the arts, he said, “helps build community. That’s what performing arts is about.”
The 11,000-square-foot theater is owned by the city and leased to the Zeiterion as home to the Performing Arts Center, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, and New Bedford Festival Theater. It’s been closed since a Decades Dance Party was held there on Aug. 12.
The closing was a setback for downtown, followed soon after by the announcement that UMass Dartmouth was pulling the College of Visual and Performing Arts out of the old Star Store, another historic building just a few steps away on Purchase Street.
Jay Lanagan, who co-owns the Rose Alley Ale House, and has had a hand in opening several restaurants in downtown New Bedford, said changes in dining-out preferences since the pandemic dampened the life of downtown New Bedford, as did the Zeiterion closing.
“Restaurants that complemented the Zeiterion demographic have certainly seen a loss in sales,” said Lanagan, emphasizing that he meant no criticism of the organization.
“It’s an outstanding project; it’s long overdue,” he said. “It’s no secret the Zeiterion is the premier cultural institution for the downtown and the city as a whole. We understand it’s a long-term investment. We look forward to their enhanced programming” when they reopen.
Steve Silverstein, who owns several New Bedford-area restaurants, including the Black Whale on the waterfront, said on performance nights they could always see a surge in reservations for people who had to be out in time for a show.
“The closure for the year is going to be significant,” Silverstein said, if not a “tipping point” for any particular business. “It’s an important piece of the building blocks for downtown New Bedford.”
It was part of the reason that the owners of Freestone’s City Grill, which had re-opened in December 2022, just last week announced that the place was closing for good.
“That’s really been one of the main killers,” along with a sudden departure of kitchen staff and chronic parking difficulties, said co-owner Howie Mallowes. He co-owns several city restaurants, including Carmine’s at Candleworks, which also could count on a big business boost on Zeiterion performance nights.
At Freestone’s, he said, one Zeiterion show a week could mean a couple of thousand dollars more in sales.
The Zeiterion estimates that the center generates about $10 million a year in economic impact for Southeastern Massachusetts. According to the organization, the new Zeiterion will create 14 new jobs, in addition to some 118 full- and part-time positions that had existed with the Zeiterion, the orchestra, and the Festival Theater.
First, though, there’s still some money to raise.
The existing nearly $32.4 million bankroll — about $4 million short of the estimated required amount — has up to now been split among three sources: Private philanthropy and grants, historic tax credits, state and city government allocations. By the fall, the organization will launch a public fund-raising campaign to close the gap.
Gill did not seem concerned about making the $4 million goal. She said she’s already in the early stages of planning the opening season, which she hopes will take place late next year. “Plan B,” she said, is early 2026.
The project is meant to update the theater and enhance it as a community resource. Plans include more room for educational programs, including a dance studio on the third floor, and a new space in the basement for events, performances, and film screenings. A new lounge on the second floor will also serve as an event space.
New bathrooms will be installed on all three floors, and the box office is moving to the front of the building, providing more presence on the street. The box office will stand under a new marquee.
The main auditorium layout will be modified, adding seats and improving access for disabled people. The roughly 1,250 red-velvet seats will be new, installed in a space with new paint and restored murals to match the colors of the 1923 original.
And the chandelier, about as wide as a hot tub, will be cleaned, rewired and fitted with LED lights to replace 102 incandescent bulbs. The ragged gold tassels around the rim will be replaced, and each of who-knows-how-many crystal beads forming the body of the chandelier will be cleaned.
On Monday morning, July 1, a crew gently lowered the chandelier some 30 feet to about a yard above the floor. The next day, a crew from a Connecticut lighting company crated it and carried it off, the first step toward its next life lighting the room for Zeiterion patrons “beyond 100 years,” as the makeover motto goes.
Email Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
I was part of the 1982 restoration and this makes my heart so happy to know that the Z is being able to expand and upgrade everything. I am excited to see the new Box Office, which was my domain for most of the 80’s.