The estimated cost to renovate the interior of the Roby Auditorium would be just over $1.5 million.
That was the number presented to Steering committee and Roby Auditorium Partnership Council members by Architect Dave Wright during their Monday afternoon meeting in the GEA Boardroom.
The preliminary cost estimate of $1,510,217.00 (broken down by category below) for the renovation addresses three major requirements, life safety, ADA and energy code.
DAVE WRIGHT DISCUSSES PROJECTED COSTS
“So we’re looking at a million and a half dollars, just for the interior portion. I’m sure there’s gonna be a certain degree of money that’s gonna have to be spent on the exterior, but right now, our folks will go on just seeing what we can do with the individual interior. So, that’s about 6,700 square feet is what we were looking at. And if you get that on a cost per square foot basis, that’s $225.40 a square foot. That’s not bad. I was expecting a lot more and I did include a 10% contingency in there until we get this middle east thing straightened out. So, again, that’s a million and a half . That’s looking at reusing our seats.
Heating and cooling is expensive, and you see we got almost $700,000 in electrical plumbing in HVAC. But that’s stuff that we have to have.
And again, the building’s got amazing good bones, as I keep saying that. But when I took John Jacobs over there that morning, I was a little bit skeptical, a little bit nervous. But John crawled under the stage. He gave it a good look. And it’s good building. I think this thing was built in 1925 or ’26. It’s almost 100 years old. It’s a good building. We need to keep it, it’s attached to the older school which is built in 1894. So it’s one of those good buildings that we need to take care of. It’s really in great shape. It’s just got some issues that the code has gone above and beyond us. We have to take care of the ADA, which we should. And the toilets are nonexistent in there. But now we will have our own and not lose a whole lot other than a few seats. But I think as Matt has said, this will be more than an auditorium, it will be I think, a multifaceted space.”
Wright also presented preliminary drawings and designs for the renovation of the one hundred year old auditorium.
City Councilman Matthew Hensley, who oversees the steering committee for the Town, opened the meeting by recapping the history of the Roby, built as a school in 1894. Fast forward to when the auditorium was vacated in the early 2000’s until now.
MATT HENSLEY ON MOVING FORWARD
“We wanted to look at developing a partnership council. We want this to be a community project with folks that can represent different walks, different paths, different industries, backgrounds that can use that space. Because as we saw from history, the little theater group that was using the facility, the town didn’t have another tenant because they held it for so long. We don’t want that to be a problem in the future. We want this to be a space that multiple groups can take advantage of to use for different civic groups, bringing in speakers, bringing in, doing performances. And a lot of the stuff we outlined in our work. But we want this to be the community’s auditorium. We also recommended because we know that the big question, which we’re going to get to today, well, how much is this going to cost? Is it worth it? I’ve heard everywhere from three to four million.
But we don’t envision this being a tax burden, so to speak, on the backs of just the taxpayers. We want this to be a funding effort that is achieved through a campaign, and we’ll get into that a little bit. But we want this to also be a economic revenue generator for the town. I’ve had the opportunity to talk a little bit with the town of Jonesborough about the revival of the Jackson Theatre and how it has been a revenue generator. So I feel like there’s an opportunity for it to be contribute to the economic development of the town.
We want to make sure that we’re angling this step by step. But the first part is bringing in our partnership council to share where we are and to get feedback and to really do this hand in hand.”
FUNDRAISING
The group will continue to move forward with ideas about fundraising for the project, including the process for accepting pledges from prospective donors.
ROBY REPORT
The full 21 page Roby Center Evaluation Committee Report presented to the City Council in December can be seen below:
