Stores near the Loop corner of Adams Street and Wabash Avenue are holding “lost our lease, everything must go” sales. The owners of the Russian Tea Cafe are preparing to pack their samovars and other belongings and move out of harm’s way to a site just east on Adams.
This activity means only one thing: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s wrecking crew is on its way.
After some fitful starts, the long-planned renovation and westward expansion of Orchestra Hall, the CSO’s venerable home at 220 S. Michigan Ave., finally gets cracking this fall. Construction will be timed so as not to interfere with the CSO’s performance schedules and the entire project won’t be completed until fall 1997.
CSO officials outlined the expansion plan at a press conference last February, but said they couldn’t provide many details or full-blown architectural renderings until they had finished agonizing over the project’s budget.
The project’s tab was estimated at the time at about $92 million, but within a few months had scaled above $100 million. Henry Fogel, executive director of the CSO’s parent, the Orchestral Association, said that by discarding some design elements, planners were able to bring the budget down to $95.5 million, a figure approved by the association’s board July 13.
In a recent interview, Fogel offered new details about the construction and anticipated seating and ticketing changes. He acknowledged that several issues remain to be resolved.
It’s still unclear, for example, whether $25 million or $30 million can be raised to build a smaller, 1,200-seat performance hall on Wabash. And because some 30 to 35 seats in the hall’s front balcony will be among those eliminated in the remodeling, Fogel must come up with a Solomon-like way of selecting and compensating subscribers who will lose what may be the best seats in the house.
The CSO must get approval from the city for construction in the lakefront area, for remodeling the interior of a landmark structure and for rerouting the alley behind Orchestra Hall, according to Chicago attorney Jack Guthman, who is handling zoning issues for the project.
Barring any unexpected complications, the project should kick off in October, when demolition is to begin on several buildings along Adams and Wabash acquired by the CSO last February for about $22.6 million. Those properties include a parking garage, which the CSO will try to keep open as long as possible, since it brings in $50,000 a month in revenues, Fogel said.
In their place will rise an eight-story support building with space for rehearsal rooms and mechanical equipment, and a six-story rotunda providing access to Orchestra Hall from a second entrance at Wabash and Adams and linking other structures in the complex.
By next June, workers should begin tearing down a narrow two-story structure that separates the hall from the Borg-Warner Building, 200 S. Michigan Ave. The structure, which was purchased for about $1.8 million and currently houses a poster shop, will be replaced by a six-story arcade extending west along the side of Orchestra Hall to the rotunda. The arcade will provide access to all levels of Orchestra Hall.
Before the demolition ends next August, work is expected to begin on interior remodeling of the eight-story Chapin and Gore Building, a landmark structure at 63 E. Adams St. that was built in 1904, the same year as Orchestra Hall.
The first two floors of Chapin and Gore will house a restaurant and a music library and lecture hall. The Russian Tea Cafe, a popular spot for concertgoers, is seeking to move from Chapin and Gore in October and reopen almost immediately in a larger space on the Adams side of the Borg-Warner Building, according to the cafe’s manager, Vadim Muchnik.
The six upper floors of Chapin and Gore will be converted into office space. Plans call for the CSO staff to be relocated to Chapin and Gore before the remodeling of Orchestra Hall starts in summer 1996.
The roof of the building, which slopes, will be made level to improve acoustics. With the offices out of the hall, lobbies on the upper floors will be expanded.
The auditorium’s 2,590 seats are to be replaced by new ones, wider by an inch or so.
Wider seats, of course, mean fewer seats per row. To minimize the seat loss, the upper two floors, the balcony and gallery, will be extended forward by 21 inches, at a cost of about $2 million. Even so, the remodeling will subtract 198 seats from the upper floors, including 30 to 35 in the front of the balcony, where some of the CSO’s most devoted subscribers sit.
“How do we determine who will lose those seats?” Fogel asked, clearly not relishing the search for an answer.
To improve acoustics on the main floor, the walls will be refashioned and row endings contoured. That will result in 74 fewer seats on the main floor, or 272 fewer counting those mentioned above.
To partially offset the loss, the CSO will offer 198 “terrace” seats on the stage, above and behind the orchestra. The stage itself will be deepened.
Fogel said there will be 48 seats on each side and 102 seats directly behind the orchestra. When the Chicago Symphony Chorus performs with the CSO, the center seats will be used for the chorus. As a result, Fogel said, those performances probably won’t be included in the CSO’s subscription series and may have to be sold on a single-ticket basis.
Even with all the terrace seats, the CSO will suffer a net loss of 74 seats when the revamped hall opens in the fall of 1997. “That’s a gross potential of $300,000 a year from seats that will be lost,” Fogel said.
Fogel said prices of some tickets might be raised slightly to offset any loss in revenue.
He said much will depend on what the CSO can charge for the terrace seats. Although such seats aren’t uncommon in theaters abroad, Fogel noted that they are a novelty here. He said CSO ticketholders probably will be surveyed to see if they attach any premium to sitting behind the orchestra.
With terrace seats, Fogel said, “You tend to get an abundance of French horns, but you get to see the face of the conductor.”
