From left to right: John Marini, Walt Kendzierski, David Cassetti, Sheila O'Malley.
ANSONIA — The Ansonia Opera House Committee announced on Wednesday Jan. 10 the first major injection of public funds into the restoration of the oldest opera house in Connecticut: a $60,000 grant from the State Historic Preservation Office.
Committee members say this is a vital first step toward restoring what was once a center of entertainment for the city.
The Ansonia Opera House was closed in 1971, but before that, it was used for everything from roller skating to high school graduations. The state grant will be earmarked for a “conditions assessment:” an inspection of the property by a certified architect, to identify the work and funding needed to restore it.
Condition assessments are a prerequisite for most public funding applications, officials said
“This is the key that unlocks the door to further federal and state funding opportunities,” said Ansonia City Corporation Counsel John Marini.
The Opera House Committee is a public-private partnership between the City of Ansonia and the Kendzierski family, which has owned the Opera House since purchasing the empty property in 1983.
Walt Kendzierski, who serves as CEO of the committee, signed a 30-year-lease with the city in early 2022. The length of the lease is a testament to both the ambition and difficulty involved in the restoration.
“The entire main room looked like a bomb went off in there, when we went in there originally,” said Anthony Mullin, chairman of the committee.
Mullin and others on the committee spent the last two years cleaning up the property where possible: fixing lights, removing clutter. They’ve poured their own money into the project and raised more through podcasts, private sponsorships, and paranormal tours, but the scope of the project may be larger — and costlier — than what the committee can handle without public funding.
Marini said that, originally, the committee only envisioned restoring the opera house’s exterior. The original lease agreement tasks the city with replacing the windows and making other visual improvements to the outside of the building. But as enthusiasm has grown for the project, so too have its ambitions. Now the committee hopes to make the space fully functional for concerts, weddings, and public events.
“We’re very clear on wanting this to have a social, community aspect, and for it to be usable by the community as a whole,” Marini said.
For all the decades the opera house has been owned by the Kendzierskis, they have resisted attempts to redevelop the space for other commercial and residential uses. Though the first floor is rented out to several businesses, the second and third have been kept empty with an eye toward restoration.
Momentum for a similar project has also been picking up in Derby. There, the Sterling Opera House, which has been closed since at least 1965, has been the target of restoration projects for at least the last fifteen years.
Last November, the Sterling Opera House Commission announced that it had found an architect to conduct a conditions assessment there. Elsewhere in Connecticut, opera house restorations have been successful: the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam (restored 1959 – 63) and Thomaston Opera House (restored 1968) continue to host shows to this day.
When the conditions assessment is completed, the project will become eligible to apply for more public funding than it currently receives.
