ST. LOUIS — A concert hall in Grand Center celebrated a renovation on Wednesday. No, it wasn’t Powell Hall, which reopened to the public in mid-September after being closed for two years for its own renovation.
This time it was the Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries’ turn to celebrate a facelift that includes a new marquee, updated restrooms, a new bar area and more.
“This has been the culmination of an $11 million capital campaign, a four-year project of improvement,” Peter Palmero, executive director of the Sheldon, said at the ribbon-cutting.
While behind-the-scenes work and fundraising has been going on for years, the concert hall itself has only been closed for the summer and reopened Wednesday night with a country-folk concert from Roger McGuinn.
“I don’t know if you all realize just how difficult a job this was to end a successful season back in May, work hard during the summer to get us to this point, and then be able to open up with a sell-out crowd tonight,” said board member Jim Watson at the ribbon-cutting.
The Sheldon raised $9.1 million of its $11 million goal for the renovation. Cheryl Walker, the board chair, is confident they’ll raise the rest of the money.
“I don’t know the exact timeline when that will happen, but we got a lot further, a lot faster than we had envisioned,” she said in an interview. “For example, we’d envisioned we’d have to borrow a lot more money to do this renovation than we wound up having to because of the pace at which we were raising money.”
Visitors will already notice changes before they even enter the Sheldon. There is a new marquee with multicolored lights. Inside is a crisp, white new box office space with a new grand staircase that includes the Scandinavian-style light wood flooring.
Upstairs is a zebra-striped accent wall and a new bar area, a lounge nook, new couches and chairs, and updated bathrooms with wood paneled stalls. The only change to the concert hall itself is new carpet.
“The concert hall is historic. We wanted what we did over here to match that, not try to mimic but have that same feel, classic but elevated,” Palermo said in an interview.
The art gallery was also reconfigured to allow more kinds of art to fit in it.
The Sheldon will have its first art installation in place by Nov. 7, which is also when the hall will have its public grand opening. The first exhibit will be “We Each Hold Stories,” which features work from Indigenous Americans.
This is not the first time the Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries have had to undergo renovation. The building where the lobby is located used to be a parking garage.
Now, thanks to Trivers Architects and BSI Builders, who designed and built the project respectively, it as a relaxing pre- or post-concert hangout.
“I was hearing too many times that we’re the best kept secret in St. Louis,” Palermo said. “And nothing will drive an executive director crazier than those words. So we wanted to improve our visibility and the visitor experience.
“The concert hall is a St. Louis treasure and its world class. It’s a perfect space for music. And we wanted the rest of the visitor experience to live up to that standard.”
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Rosalind Early | Post-Dispatch
Deputy features editor
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