For years, the building at 3901 Shaw Avenue sat unnoticed and slowly deteriorating. While sometimes occupied by a retail tenant or small corner market use, the building was unrecognizable as something that was once a neighborhood gathering space. When the building was suggested as an option to our client by the City, we realized that it had actually been the Shaw Theater in a past life and at about 9300 square feet, was exactly what we were looking for. After exploring the interior, we realized that the old theater portion had huge barrel trusses, exposed brick and other interesting details.
Our team consulted on the development, helping our client to find the building, negotiate the purchase with the City, and utilize Historic Tax Credits. We brought her vision of an event space for hosting weddings and events for up to 200 people. To host variable-sized events, we needed to make the space flexible while respecting the old theater space architecturally. For the most part, we left the space open and exposed, and inserted small, contrasting volumes into the space to house the kitchen, bar, mezzanine, bride and grooms’ rooms, and storage. The arrangement of these spaces allows for variable sized events and some of the existing architectural features create opportunities to divide the space and curate to an event – and also make those evermore important “Instagram-able” moments.
The design and construction team worked collaboratively to create a great space that worked with the budget. We completely renovated the ground floor interior of the building into and event space and a small 2nd floor apartment into an apartment or Air BnB that can be rented along with the space. Using historic tax credits, the exterior was refurbished to its former glory as the Shaw Theater. A large and impressive historic canopy and ticket booth were reconstructed on the front of the building. We worked with the State Historic Preservation Office to make other thoughtful modifications to accommodate the new use.
