Morris back on track after hitting a snag

Editor's note: This story originally appeared Sept. 25, 1999. The Tribune is republishing it as part of its coverage of the Morris Performing Arts Center's centennial in 2022.

SOUTH BEND ― It might be Saturday, but Duane Lowery won't be taking it easy.

He and other workers building the new Morris Performing Arts Center stagehouse will be on the job today and every Saturday until the structure is completed. And starting Monday, the daily shifts will be bumped up from eight to 10 hours.

The workers' overtime comes after a monthlong delay, during which Kessler Architects, Verkler Construction and the project's engineers struggled to resolve a potential problem with the stagehouse's exterior wall. Cleo Hickey, who stepped down earlier this month as executive director of the Morris but continues to oversee the building effort, blamed miscommunication between the key parties.

"I think it's like any other large construction project where there are many people involved," Hickey said. "You have to make sure that everybody's on the same page, and sometimes they're not."

In this case, some of the large precast concrete panels intended to form the shell of the stagehouse could not, as delivered, be attached securely to the steel pillars. Lowery and the other ironworkers were taken off the job for four weeks while new parts were ordered to help with installation. Those parts arrived Friday from Kalamazoo, and now work on the exterior can continue in earnest.

"We should be done with it by now," complained Lowery, apprenticeship director of Local 292 of the IronWorkers union. Standing near the theater's proscenium wall, on which masons have been able to work while the giant crane has been idle, Lowery shook his head ruefully. In his opinion, Kessler should have been clearer in its instructions to the maker of the precast panels: "The architects, they dropped the ball."

Edward Francis of Kessler Associates Inc., the Detroit-based firm behind the Morris project, denied any fault for the delay.

"We had to get together with the precast fabricator and the structural engineer to sort out any misunderstandings, and we did that. The normal checks and balances that occur on a construction project did occur," Francis said. "As far as I know, all decisions were made in a timely manner, and now everything's back on track."

Had the problems with the concrete and steel not been detected and solved, he added, "There may have been some movement on the precast panels and, worst-case scenario, one may have come down."

With that disaster averted and the delay behind them, everyone involved is glad to see the crane back in action. "We want to just get it done and get people back in here seeing shows," Lowery said.

That goes double for Anita Boorda, director of the Broadway Theatre League.

"I do know that everybody is working hard at it," said Boorda, whose organization has been homeless and essentially without income since December 1997. "But when you're running up on two years, it's time to get the job done," she said.

The league has two shows scheduled for the Morris in January 2000 -- "The Big Apple Circus" and "Sunset Boulevard," dates to be announced ― and with much of the stagehouse exterior still a bare skeleton, three months seems to Boorda a very short time. Despite assurances by Verkler Construction that work on the theater will be done by January, Boorda has developed some contingency plans.

"Technically, if we've signed a contract on a show and it doesn't happen, we're supposed to pay for it," she explained. "But we have some other alternatives." Boorda would not say what those alternatives were.

Other upcoming shows include "Tap Dogs" in February, "Les Miserables" beginning Feb. 29, and "Riverdance" for eight performances in April. Past subscribers will receive a 2000 season brochure in a few weeks, added Boorda, who's been getting lots of calls from Morris patrons asking when the theater will reopen.

Had the Morris construction gone according to schedule ― and, it should be noted, few projects of its kind ever do ― the stagehouse would have been enclosed by August and the theater would be ready for an audience sometime in November. Now, Hickey and construction manager Fred Lusk of Verkler are saying that "major construction" will be done in November and that the Morris will be ready to open its doors by the new year.

The project's principals met Thursday to refine that timetable, but so far no date has been set for the theater's grand opening celebration. That leaves Marijke Niles, the Morris's new executive director and producer of the grand opening show, in an awkward position, having to hire an emcee and performers without telling them exactly when they'll be needed.

Hickey promised that the official opening date would be announced soon.

"Things are moving," she said. "The sooner the precast goes up, the sooner the roofers can put things up, and then the inside work can really start. To get the stagehouse enclosed ― it's very important."

Lusk has no doubt that the hall will be enclosed before cold weather sets in. Once the loading dock is built and the parking lot is paved, he added, passers-by won't be able to see much progress from the street. But inside, painters and other workers will be busy completing the Morris' dramatic transformation.

"I'm not an artsy kind of guy," Lusk admitted, "but I've seen what they've done so far, and even I was impressed. When it's done, it'll knock your socks off."

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Work resumes on Morris Performing Arts Center in September 1999