The city of Worcester, Massachusetts “has reached an agreement with the Architectural Heritage Foundation for the sale and redevelopment of the Worcester Memorial Auditorium,” writes Nick Kotsopoulos in Thursday’s (5/23) Telegram and Gazette (Worcester, Mass.). Among the musical ensembles that previously performed there are the Worcester Orchestra and Boston Pops. “The Boston-based historic preservation group will purchase the historic city-owned building for $450,000 and projects investing a total of $94 million in redeveloping it…. The plan calls for the rehabilitation and restoration of the auditorium into an innovative digital technology, arts and education center. It will also provide a forum for state-of-the-art commercial entertainment and an incubator for business entrepreneurs involved in the 21st-century digital media industry…. AHF will recognize the cultural, institutional and commercial users in the surrounding area and the historic nature of the auditorium…. The agreement with AHF lays out a path to a closing in two years…. Worcester Memorial Auditorium was built in 1933 [and] is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of an Institutional District. It has three distinct sections: main foyer/Memorial Hall, main auditorium and Little Theatre…. The Classical Revival building … has been vacant since 1999.”
Posted May 29, 2019
