Long Wharf Staying Put Until At Least 2022

Long Wharf Theatre is making room for even the longest-legged patrons as it puts in new seats — not in a new downtown building, but at its current home on Long Wharf.

The storied theater had been hoping to move from its home at the food terminal to a new downtown development atop the grave of the old New Haven Coliseum. But fund-raising proved slow. And the development itself fell victim to the recession.

So now Long Wharf has signed a new ten-year lease at its current abode and begun spending money instead on improving its current home — including upgrading lights and making the seats four inches bigger.

“Given the state of the economy and realities of trying to raise huge amounts of money, we had to make some decisions. We extended our lease at the terminal until 2022,” Long Wharf Board President Mary Pepe said during an interview at the theater.

The move doesn’t foreclose on a possible move downtown between now and then, she said.

“We’re stabilizing ourselves in our home in the short term while we defer our future longer-term plans,” said Managing Director Ray Collum.

In the spring, the theater slowed down an ambitious $30 million fundraising campaign and deferred naming an architect for the new downtown home, which was to have been the centerpiece of the 4.5 acre Coliseum site project. Click here to read that story.

The state had chipped in $750,000 for planning and feasibility. Based on that, Pepe said the Long Wharf had raised $9 million for endowment and $9 million for operating costs of a new building.

Meanwhile, the city’s chosen developer for the entire project, Northland Investment Corporation, dropped out because of the economic downturn; it decided to focus instead on another city project, the renovation of the Church Street South housing project. City development chief Kelly Murphy said the city has revived talks with other developers who had expressed interest in the site; it plans to spend 2011 reexamining its plans for the Coliseum land. Another significant blow to a possible downtown move is the state’s fiscal condition, which eliminated in the near term the prospect of $30 million bonding for the project.

So given the economic uncertainty, the theater decided to stay put rather than fly to places it knows not of.

It recently hired the New Haven architectural firm Gregg Wies & Gardner (GWG) to look at a much more modest renovation of the current facility, in the $2 to $3 million range.

It will include what Pepe called ​“health, safety, and patron comfort” improvements.

That includes upgrading the seats in the 500-seat main theater and making sure there are the standard 36 inches between rows rather than the current 32 inches.

Also the risers are original to the Long Wharf, built in 1965.

Collum, a big man who took over the managing director’s reins two years ago, described how it feels to try to sidle into a crowded row: ​“I’m toast.”

Although the architects’ plans are still a work in progress, Pepe and Collum said to expect improvements to lobby flow and upgraded and additional bathrooms.

Other possibilities include better dressing rooms and improvements to the jungle of lights, beneath which on Thursday morning carpenter Frank Conley and scenery resident Lydia Pustell were putting finishing touches on the set for the theater’s upcoming The Old Masters.

“It’s safe to say seats are a priority,” said Pepe, who slid into Section D, Row C. Among the Long Wharf’s cognoscenti this area is known as as the narrowest of the narrow, Pepe said.

That’s why so many patrons ask for seats at the end of the aisles, she added.

Regarding the decision to stay at the food terminal for now ​“The ​‘aha moment’ was when we realized seats could be replaced without major disruption,” Pepe said.

Collum said the theater is on goal and doing well ticket-sale wise, with about 80,000 people coming annually to all the theater’s events.

Older folks comprise the season-ticket buyers, and younger people the buyers of tickets for individual shows, often at the last moment.

“When you attend a movie, you have a comfortable seat and cup-holder. If they enjoy a show [at the theater], we don’t want their comfort or lack thereof to be an impediment to coming back,” Collum said.

A memorandum of understanding still exists between the city and Long Wharf for the next developer to give the site a preference to include the theater in its plans.

Deputy Economic Development Director Tony Bialecki is convening an ad hoc committee to review the proposals of the developers who lost out to Northland. The Long Wharf’s Collum is on that committee, which will meet on Jan. 20.

There are several silver linings to the decision to stay put for now. They include not having to raise huge amounts of capital in tough economic times.

In addition, being on the verge of moving for such an extended periods had resulted in much deferred maintenance that will now also be attended to. That includes the HVAC, Pepe said.

Perhaps the biggest silver lining: now without demolition or disruption, the shows will go on.

The United States premiere of Simon Gray’s The Old Masters opens Jan. 19. Starring Sam Waterston, the drama focuses on how money affects the intellectual tug of war between pioneering art connoisseur Bernard Berenson and art dealer Joseph Duveen.