Palace finale at hand

The curtain fell for the last time Wednesday on Superior's historic Palace Theater.

City Councilors decided nearly a quarter-century was long enough to wait for a miracle that might have saved the historic vaudeville and movie house. By the end of the year, the theater that first opened its doors March 26, 1917, will cease to exist.

City officials plan to raze the Palace along with the former Odyssey's and End Zone bars to the north later in the fall. The city bought the former liquor establishments earlier this year with plans to demolish the buildings for redevelopment.

Mayor Dave Ross, who was unable to attend Wednesday night's council meeting, has said he is confident the council's decision will clear the path for new development in Superior's downtown. Unlike the Carnegie library on Hammond Avenue, community support to save the Palace just wasn't there, said Councilor Chuck Hendry.

"It's kind of unfortunate," Hendry said.

While there had been a couple efforts to save the theater during the past 24 years, none ever came close to accomplishing the task.

In September, the council issued an ultimatum -- find a developer in six months or take the building down. A task force tried to market the building for performance, art or retail space in the theater. But it was unable to find anyone willing to adequately advance the project, even when given extra time to look.

Numerous potential developers cited the theater's location, small size of the community and the lack of people in Downtown Superior as problems working against its rehabilitation.

"I feel confident that we covered all the bases," Jason Serck, port and planning director, said of the task force. "I'm confident that we can start moving -- not really forward, disappointingly -- but probably toward the razing of this building."

During the nine-month search for a developer, only one proposal came forward.

Engineer Thomas Misco of La Crosse, who operates historic theaters there and in other Wisconsin communities, proposed operating a movie house and restaurant in the building, but his proposed investment fell far short of what city consultants said it would cost to adequately rehabilitate the theater. While experts placed the cost anywhere between $1 million and $2 million, Misco proposed investing only about $390,000 in the theater.

Once called the "theater beautiful", the Palace today is a shell of what it had been when it opened to a full house. Ornate relief lies amidst broken plaster beneath a private box near the stage and rusted mesh holds scarred plaster to the balcony. Patrons' seats fill the stage, decades of dust and debris clinging to worn fabric. Some areas of the historic building are impassible because of pigeon droppings and mud that's seeped into the basement over the years.

"We did make a good effort to look for people," said Councilor Dennis Dalbec. "For those of us who went through the building, we knew it was going to be a tremendously costly venture for anyone to go in there and rehab the building. The dead pigeons, the rats, the mold, asbestos -- I think it's time for the building to come down -- and as soon as we can get it down because the bricks are falling off the building."