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I'm George Lepeniotis, the co-host of Economic Outlook.

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Once threatened by the wrecking ball.

Now a cornerstone of a vibrant arts and entertainment district, the Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend is celebrating its 100th year and getting a facelift with some $30 million of improvements planned for the facility.

We'll dove deeper into what those plans look like and tell you more about what you can expect when you next.

Go to see a show.

Coming up next on Economic Outlook.

We're back in the studio for a new season of Economic Outlook.

And today, I believe we have a great show for you.

The Morris Performing Arts Center in downtown South Bend is getting a facelift with some $30 million of improvements planned.

The first phase was recently completed, but much work remains.

Joining me to talk more about what's happening at the Morris are Aaron Perri, the executive director of venues, parks and arts for the City of South Bend, and Greg Downes, the co-chair of the Morris 100 Committee.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Aaron I want to start with you.

You are the executive director of the South Bend Venue's Parks and Arts.

Has a fun.

Job.

It does sound it sounds like a great job.

I wish I, I wish I would have applied.

But I think they picked the right person.

Tell me, how does the Morris fit into that?

It's not every day that you hear that a that a city owns such a massive and impressive theater.

How does that fit in and how did that come about?

Yeah, we're pretty fortunate.

The suite of things that fall up under my portfolio are all the things that we talk about are contribute to the quality of life in South Bend.

It's what makes it a city worth living in.

And so you'll see all of our parks and the baseball stadium and the zoo and of course, the Century Center and the Morris that we're talking about today.

It's a 100 year old gym that didn't originally belong to the city.

In fact, it was privately developed and managed for the first 35 years of its life until it started to fall into disrepair.

And that private company basically supposed that they were going to tear it down until came a local philanthropist.

Was that the infamous 1958 wrecking ball incident?

That's right, yeah.

So about 1958, the theater faced peril and that's where the city came in to the rescue.

While the city didn't come to the rescue.

The city was gifted the product from Ella Morris who purchased it.

We don't know how much she bought it for an undisclosed sum of money.

So goes the story.

But she gave it to the city for a dollar and it's been in our hands ever since.

So let's talk about Ella.

Ella Morris was a resident of South Bend and a philanthropist.

That's right.

How did it come to be that she got ownership of the Morris?

If we know the story.

I don't know if we know the full story, but I do understand she was a lover of the arts.

And in fact, she had a little acting career herself.

So it just seemed fitting that she had the means and made this gem possible to be restored without her, we wouldn't have 100th birthday.

We probably wouldn't even have had a 50th birthday.

So well and great.

Greg moving from Ella Morris up to 2022 you were the CEO of Gibson Insurance.

You're a longtime South Bend resident, also a philanthropist.

I think that's a fair statement and a long time supporter of the city.

Did there how did Aaron approach you with this project that the Morris is 100 and may need it needed two things it sounds like it needed a celebration, but also some work.

Absolutely.

Well, Aaron knew well, as did the mayor, that my wife, Mary and I have been involved with the city for many, many years.

I'm still on the century center board, the hotel motel tax board.

I've been involved with the chamber, DTSB and so forth.

So I think they they knew that we'd probably say, yes, we're big fans of the Morris.

We just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last year and we've been going to the Morris for over 50 years.

So we were kind of a natural to ask.

Well, and that's so important to have people who are invested in the community there to support it.

Back to the history, though, and maybe you know a little bit about the history.

So the city assumed it in the fifties and for a long time it's been really a staple of the arts district here in South Bend.

Absolutely.

Let's talk about some of the things that that building has hosted.

Well, I understand it's the statistics are staggering.

I have them here.

It's it's literally over 2700 some events.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

The economic impact of the Morris downtown is unbelievable.

I think something like $240 million over the last 20 years.

Thousands and thousands of hotel room nights each year.

When you count the Palais Royal, for example, it's a big wedding reception venue.

It's just been a great thing for downtown South Bend.

It started out obviously as a as a vaudeville house and ran into trouble when television came in, actually.

And that's when Ella saved it.

What I was just going to say the quality of acts, though, that have come through from from that period of time up until today are just remarkable.

When you think about you stand on that stage and you go, boy, this is where Frank Sinatra stood, right?

Or Harry Houdini or Betty Davis and just the list goes on and on.

And, you know, we just announced Mellencamp's coming back.

The acts that come through that building are remarkable, let alone the partners that we have with things like the the nationally touring Broadway acts that come through our core South Bend Symphony Orchestra.

I was I was I was going to remind you that that even that is a big, big producer there.

Right.

I mean, the South Bend Orchestra would not necessarily have such a great place to perform as the Morris there, one of our remarkable resident groups and so this this this level of theatrical performances is well above and beyond what a city of our size would normally have.

And it's only because of a supportive community, people like Greg and Mary stepping up to not only chair of the committee and donate personal funds, but also pull together a tremendous group of people.

How many people, Greg?

Well, we've our committee that we formed is over 60 people.

And they've been instrumental in our in our success for the campaign up.

An interesting thing about the Morris there's there's a an organization called Pollstar who measures keeps track of all the theaters worldwide and they track it by attendance and ticket sales and so forth and the Morris has historically finished in the top 75 or so in the world we're talking about now.

So in a city this size, I think the latest ranking was we were like, we're 55.

Yeah, but when you break that down into theaters that are 100 years old or so, we're in the top five in the world.

Remarkable for a city this size.

Well, and I've often said that South Bend, in our broader Michiana region, are remarkable about a lot of things in their economic landscape.

But specifically, the Morris, I think even more remarkable and well, I think this is a great place to start transitioning from its history to what's going on today is you've often heard people say there's no bad seat in the House, but there truly is not a very bad seat in that theater.

How did that come to be at a place that was built 100 years ago for a vaudeville show?

There's not a column.

There's nothing.

Spectacular.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the beauty of a building that has such good bones.

This particular building was one of about eight theaters up and down the street.

And really, it's the only one that's functioning still.

Yet today it was built with a future in mind, of course.

And so but there was a bad seat in the House, not from the views, but from literally.

They were falling apart.

They were all bad.

Yeah.

They were falling apart.

And part of this campaign and this initiative that we've been talking about here was to included replacing every single seat in the House.

And so 2400 and some odd new seats in the theater when you go back and starting now.

And so we're really proud of some of those upgrades.

At the intro, I said that there's planned $30 million of improvements, so the 30 million has not been spent as of today, but a significant amount has been spent largely on the bones.

So let's talk about that.

How did your group, both at the city level and also at your committee level, decide what to address first?

I think it was need.

I think it was need.

And that was the Morris itself.

First of all, the shows that we're bringing in now demand a certain level of air quality.

For example, with with COVID and everything else going on.

We had to do that.

Obviously, the roof has been an issue, as is the 100 year old concrete floor.

So those things were not by choice.

But an interesting thing is we have a guaranteed energy savings contract that where you if you do everything they say, they suggest or recommend, that means replacing all the lighting, you name it.

If you do all that, it amounts to about $300,000 a year savings in energy costs.

They then guarantee that amount over a 20 year period.

If you don't save that much in a year, they write you a check for the difference.

So you're talking about $6 million right there.

Absolutely.

So these these upgrades paid for themselves?

Yes.

Yeah.

Over the life of the equipment.

Yeah.

Which was.

Incredible.

And that doesn't even account for the ability to attract bigger, better acts that will benefit from the technical improvements to the theater.

That's right.

As well as the experiential upgrades.

Yeah, it's not just about the bones.

I mean, most people aren't going to notice the new floor of the new roof, the new boilers, the new chillers, but the new seats, you'll notice those.

They're a little bit wider.

There's there's cupholders.

There's a little bit more room between the aisles.

Speaking of the improvements and what you're going to notice or not, I had the opportunity to go out to the theater and take a look.

I met with city engineer project manager Becca Plantz who showed me around, and I think this is a great place to insert that segment.

So going out to the field to take a closer look at these new improvements.

Nothing more enjoyable than being in the field.

I'm joined by Becca Plantz.

Becca, thanks for being with me today.

Thank you for having me.

Your job title is Project Engineer with the City of South Bend.

As we all know, the city owns the Morris.

And you have been responsible over the past few years for renovating this grand old dame.

Tell me a little bit about you first.

You are what is a project engineer?

Yeah.

So I spend most of my days the days are never the same, honestly, but I spend most of my days reviewing plans, designing plans, working with consultants for projects like this, many of our other buildings, facilities.

And then we also do water treatment, storm sewers and other departments do transportation streets.

So a little bit of everything.

But generally speaking, you are very keen on construction, as I've seen while walking through the facility with you.

You know, every little detail of this building down to where the where they are, the pipe is that feeds the ornamental water fountain.

So let's talk a little bit about the process of renovating the Morris.

I know that there are multiple phases.

I would say you guys are just completing phase one.

Is that fair to say?

Yes.

And phase one involved, starting as we talked about online, starting with a plaster problem.

Tell me what happened there.

So a few years ago, there is luckily nobody here on a weekend, some of the plaster up towards the dome that we were seeing failed in that fell.

They got cleaned up.

They put a net up to hold the plaster up in place or at least hold it.

So if anything else came down that that would catch it.

They reset all the plaster and then more shows kept going on.

And then we started this phase.

So in this phase you have redone a lot of the plaster they called in the engineers.

They figured out you guys figured out what needed to be done.

And there was a plaster project where a lot of the plaster in the theater looks spectacular now.

So once that was done, though, you went even deeper.

Let's talk about the floor.

You actually removed the entire floor of the theater.

Tell me what that what what happened?

Yeah.

So the first level, the floor was just giving us problems every time they wanted to move seats around.

Usually we don't move seats, but the seats were struggling.

They weren't staying fixed to the concrete anymore.

There were other operational problems we had where there's pieces of the components, there are pieces of the process can be more efficient.

And so being able to totally start from scratch, take the whole thing out, reset them, the mechanics for them, keep the same exact slope.

So all the views are the same as anybody who's been in the wars before says they have a great view wherever you are kept all the slopes and then added some platforms in the back to that.

They're more steamier calling loages and you can do free stand sitting, free standing seats there and get some services.

Oh, I see.

So you didn't necessarily change the dynamics of the first level of the theater, but it is a brand new floor.

You were able to do some things that more modern theaters already have.

Right.

Like cable troughs and and the air conditioning.

Let's talk about that, because that is a big part of being in a theater.

Right.

You're actually redoing most of the HVAC systems here, aren't you?

Yes.

So all mechanicals, plumbing, lights were part of a guaranteed energy savings contract.

And so that actually ended up being somewhat separate to the physical changes that happened in the first level.

So around all of that, that you bring in an extra two or three contractors to change plumbing and all of our heating and cooling components and all the controls that go with it.

It's funny because as I walked in and we started the tour, I didn't think much had changed.

But as you really started pointing out the details was that part of the plan always was to make it feel like it hadn't changed and we hadn't lost anything.

Absolutely and before for the marketing of the project they recorded, folks come in, they talk about their memories for the Morris and that was a big piece.

You don't want to change anybody's memories, just kind of bringing it up to a little bit more of a modern day style, but still keeping the historical presentation that the theater brings.

Yeah, yeah.

Including little things like touching up the paint and changing the curtains, but still maintaining that original feel.

On a final note, I know that your project has been complicated a little bit because in fact the theater's back open, its functioning fully.

You're not yet done with construction.

So you are juggling those two things, aren't you?

Yeah.

So there's priorities you set for what needs to be done.

You think about things like trip hazards, exposure to anything that's either like raw, concrete or, you know, there's tons of electrical going on in there too.

So we weren't all that finished up.

So everything that was the priority for public access was complete by our first show this past weekend.

Okay.

And then now we're going to bring in the final elements that maybe just didn't quite make it in that schedule.

Awesome.

Well, Rebecca, I know you've got to get back to work.

You're taking some time.

I know there was a concert on Friday that was a success and you've got a whole season coming up, so I know you're squeezing in things between events, so thank you for being with us today and thank you for showing us around.

Yeah, thank you.

Back to the studio.

What an amazing closer look at the first phase of improvements to the theater.

Guys, I noticed the most noticeable thing is almost unnoticeable and it is that gray slab of concrete floor.

I didn't even notice it was new.

You really don't usually pay attention in your everyday dealings to gray concrete, but that floor is all new, carries the air conditioning ducts as well as troughs for electrical and digital cabling and allowing the theater to host new and improved acts.

At what point did you guys realize, Hey, we need to rip the floor out of this thing.

Greg?

That was right at the beginning because, of course, being 100 years old, it had deteriorated to the point where many of the seats, you couldn't reattach them properly to the floor.

So it was a must.

It really was a must.

And it was something we had to do.

Like now it's funny because when I was there, Aaron, I said, I said to Becca, he said, Becca, they're not going to notice the improvements as they walk down the aisle, but the minute they sit down, those improvements will become evident.

Tell us about these seats, because they are much bigger, much more comfortable, and they're stable.

And they're stable and they're a different color.

We switched the color palette within the building.

The historic paint and ornate nature of the buildings are the same, but all the soft goods.

So the carpet, which is yet to come, the seats themselves and the drapery is switching all from the kind of traditional maroon that we had in there to Royal Navy Royal Blue, if you will.

So speaking of the carpet, I've got to ask, recently you had the Morris Fest to help celebrate and kick off the new season.

Barenaked Ladies here.

Yeah.

And want to get more and more fest.

But first, let's talk about Barenaked Ladies.

They sing a song about that concert, about that hit the carpet.

They did.

They got a tip that that was all new theater and they were happy to be the first show reopening the theater after three months of renovations.

And they said, but, but we understand the carpet still coming.

And then they went into a four minute improv song called The Carpet Is Coming.

New hit.

New hit.

That's going to be all over.

So the Morris Fest.

Mm hmm.

Tell me, what was it?

How did it go?

I understand there were a lot of people there.

It was incredible.

It was an incredible two day festival, just a celebration of the Morris itself, I think.

How many people did you say attended?

Close to 11,000 people.

For 11,000 people over a two day period.

Biggest Ferris wheel the city's ever seen.

Unbelievable fireworks show Saturday night.

It was just phenomenal.

A magical display of kind of community pride and togetherness.

That was really beautiful.

Yeah, well, and when you think about 11,000 people in downtown South Bend, that is a significant number of people.

And that really does speak to the economic impact and force that this facility and that broader arts and entertainment district have.

You know, I think of myself, I live up in Berrien County, and if I want to come see a show, I'm more apt to drive to South Bend, have dinner, maybe even stay the night.

That really is the function from a community standpoint, isn't it?

Right.

I mean, this togetherness and kind of cultural unity that comes and exposure to creative arts and world class entertainment is one thing.

And what that does for business recruitment, retention and quality of life.

But nothing competes with the economic impact.

The dollars and cents are purely measurable.

There is nothing like a show night in downtown South Bend and the Morris complex.

Between Morris and Palais combined, you're looking at about $60 million a year of annual economic impact, supporting about 200 jobs in the downtown area.

Yeah, that's impressive.

Well, and not only that, but the effect it has on other businesses as far as quality of place.

So yeah, very, very important.

Let's talk about the Endowment for Equity in the Arts.

That was an initiative that was started as part of this process.

It was we created a separate subcommittee who went out into the community and asked a lot of questions, some of which were uncomfortable questions, but questions that needed to be asked.

As a result of that, we're going to establish this equity in the arts endowment to make sure that every individual in this community, regardless of economic background, has the opportunity to enjoy the arts, to be exposed to the arts.

And we're just very excited about one small outcome of that has been a usher mentoring program, where we're going to recruit and create scholarships for high school students who are interested in the arts, and particularly from the public high schools.

And particularly, we're going to reach out to minority students and give them an opportunity to be tutored under a volunteer usher and then get a scholarship for that.

So we're very excited about.

It's very awesome.

You know, on that note, this was a public private partnership, right?

I mean, I can I can ask you, why did you and Mary decide to get involved in it?

And you can tell me, obviously, that there was you know, you're committed to the city, your supporters.

But even beyond that, the reality is that sometimes that private sector needs to get more involved.

Is that fair to say?

Absolutely.

This is an example.

I think it's a perfect example, actually, of a public private enterprise.

And it is it takes both of to make something like this successful.

But it's you know, it's a little known, George, that almost half of the people that come to the Morris come from outside of Saint Joseph County.

It's become a truly regional attraction.

Yeah, Jeff and I have long joked that the bypass is an artery of our community and brings us all together, including Berrien, Elkhart, Saint Joseph, La Porte Counties Marshall Counties, and that South Bend is truly the hub of that region.

So as we explore the future of the project here in the last few minutes that we've got, we've said that you've not spent $30 million yet because in part you haven't raised $30 million yet.

What is the next phase of the project?

I know there's a couple of phases.

Phase one was what's completed?

Is that fair?

That's fair.

And and it's important to note that we've raised we have pledges and contributions of over 80% of our original goal of $30 million or over $24 million.

So we've come a long way.

We've got a long way to go.

And that will help us do so.

The first phase was about $9 million, the work that's already been completed.

The second phase of work will be an expansion to the building, to the north, a new building that goes in between the existing Morris and the LaSalle Hotel or the LaSalle Apartments that will allow greater circulation.

Another set of elevators, a couple of more restroom banks, more room for concessions and merchandise.

So certainly a more roomier theatergoing experience, but also some mixed use space for private events and other arts acts as well as a whole.

Reimagined plaza with some outdoor performance space, new fountains, new public art nodes, and a significantly better circulation and security features on the exterior of the building.

So in a recalling that phase three.

We're calling that those two portions of it, the new building and the plaza.

Phase two, we can get that all in here yet.

Phase two, if we get to our original $30 million goal, which as Greg alluded to, we've got about $5 million and change yet to go on.

That will go.

Well.

That's great.

That's great.

And then there is a phase three, which I think is often talked about when you're talking about urban development.

It is just the nature of the beast, especially when we're talking regionally.

If you're bringing in people regionally, they're bringing their vehicles.

So where does parking play in?

Yeah, so we were hoping to get that into phase two.

But in fact, once our more recent cost estimates came in, we realized it was about 60% higher than we would have ever imagined.

And that's probably not a surprise to most folks that are following.

Our viewers are probably experienced with rising.

Costs.

But by deferring this to a third phase, we found out that we're really leveraging an opportunity, as we've been talking about, unlocking this whole super block that contains the Morris.

We realize there's a potential to add greater density there beyond the Morris and its entertainment venues and beyond a parking garage.

What we're talking about is a potential mixed use development behind the Morris attached to the parking garage, probably above and attached to the parking garage.

So we'll be working with local developers who already showed some significant early interest and understanding how that third phase can include not only our parking, but some additional residential.

And before we went on air, we talked about how that phase three could be the most dynamic phase of the project because it could really, truly explore other opportunities for growing and expanding on that arts district, including residential, etc.

not just simply being another bland parking garage guys as as final moments of our show, is there is there somewhere you'd like to direct people to if they'd like to learn more about the Morris project?

Well, we do have a website.

It's Morris100.org and virtually all the information is that website.

Awesome.

Well, thank you both for being here.

I've appreciated it and hopefully I did a pretty good job instead of Jeff.

That's our show for today.

Thank you for watching on WNIT and listening to our podcast.

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