Tom Kacich: Two Charleston projects stuck on long road to historic preservation

Jun. 19—"Preservation isn't for people who expect things to happen overnight. It's not HGTV land," quipped Kit Morice, chair of the historic preservation commission in Charleston.

She knows from firsthand experience, having spent the better part of two decades rehabbing her home in Charleston, as well as fighting to save other historic structures in the city, including two that have been cited by the Landmarks Illinois preservation group.

Both of the buildings placed on the influential Landmarks Illinois list have sat vacant for more than 10 years: the art deco Will Rogers Theatre, built in 1937 and 1938, and the nearly 150-year-old Lawes Hotel building. Both structures are deteriorating and are in need of costly repairs.

"In the bigger picture, the Will Rogers would be the real tragedy if we lost it," Morice said. "It's not just a movie theater. It was built uniquely during the Depression in a small town as a complete destination with shops and an entire commercial block. It was all one development.

"It's not just a cool art deco theater. It is completely full of original features, and that's why it concerns us. The longer it sits, the harder it is going to be to preserve all of those art deco features."

The theater, named for the folksy movie star, radio show host and newspaper columnist who died in a 1935 plane crash, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, when it was still a thriving movie showplace. The listing includes not only the 1,043-seat theater but also six small storefronts built with it, all faced with yellow, red and black terra cotta. The developers, a partnership of movie theater owners from Charleston, Mattoon and Taylorville, chose the exterior colors to reflect the crimson and yellow of Charleston High School.

The national register nomination noted how the cheery architecture of the building contrasted with the bleakness of the dark economic times.

"The Will Rogers Commercial Block is a landmark of Charleston's Depression years," wrote Bruce Stoffel, then on the staff of the Coles County Regional Planning Commission. "It was one of the few commercial buildings constructed in the city during this period. Its vivid and colorful facade stands in irony to the difficult economic times of the Depression era during which it was built.

"The structure was quite a departure from the brick Italianate and Victorian structures which surrounded the (courthouse) square at the time. The Will Rogers indeed rejects its architectural precursors."

Interior features of the theater, which contemporary newspaper stories said cost anywhere from $90,000 to $200,000, included circular mirrors, circular bands in the lobby ceiling and circular patterns in the terrazzo floor in the lobby. The auditorium's circular recessed ceiling was painted blue and gray, the colors of the hometown Eastern Illinois State Teachers College.

The theater has been vacant since 2010. A year later, it was placed on the Landmarks Illinois list and was promptly bought by Ottawa real-estate agent and theater enthusiast Katie Troccoli. She still owns it and the unused Majestic Theater in Streator.

She estimated that it would cost as much as $5 million to restore the Will Rogers commercial block, about 25 times what it cost to build it 85 years ago.

"I am seeking funding for both (theater) projects," Troccoli said in an email. "I have applied for several grants for the Will Rogers Theatre project only to be denied funding. I am currently in the process of applying for another grant for matching funds. I continue to pay property taxes, utilities and insurance on the property."

Lenders are reluctant to help finance the project without grant help, she said.

"I have had several setbacks (an awful business partner who is now out of the picture), a family member's health and COVID," Troccoli said. "I do not want to dwell on the setbacks. I want to focus on moving forward."

Morice said the local preservation commission has offered help to Troccoli, including suggesting a private-public partnership to spur the redevelopment, but she wasn't interested.

Troccoli's plan, she said, is to work with the nonprofit organization Here and Again Inc., which she founded in 2012, to promote theaters and the entertainment industry.

"My corporation, Summer House Entertainment Inc., will operate the theater as a for-profit," Troccoli said. "We will attract clients from a 50-plus-mile radius of each venue, hosting national acts opened by local artists who perform in a Here and Again Inc. program called Song + Story. We will also be able to host film festivals and local events as well as first-run art movies.

"The national acts that play the theaters will be an economic boon to the communities. Patrons who attend events often will spend the night (or two) at local hotels, buy gas and eat in restaurants."

Plans for the Old Lawes Hotel, as it was called in this year's Landmarks Illinois list, are more amorphous. Its owner, Charleston attorney Rick Choate, could not be reached for comment.

"From what we could tell going through tax records and city directories, it's been empty for approximately 34 years," Morice said. "What is left now is the original structure, a circa-1874 brick Italianate house."

In fact, it looks somewhat like the 1867 Solon House on South State Street in Champaign, which was included on Landmarks Illinois' 1999 list of most endangered places but was reverently restored by local businessman Chris Knight.

The Lawes Hotel "was built as a single-family residence," Morice said. "It was converted around the turn of the 20th century as a hotel with a large frame addition which is now gone. Structurally, it is in pretty good shape, and the owner did put a new roof on and did some exterior repairs in 2006 when the city was making rumblings about condemnation proceedings. But in recent years, there's not been anything done with it.

"To me, that building is sound enough, and the fact that it is fairly gutted on the interior means it is ripe for rehabilitation to any number of uses. And the location being downtown and near the library and the city hall, it could be office space or a restaurant or a children's museum or an art space. There are so many possibilities."

For now, the futures of the Lawes Hotel and the Will Rogers Theatre are unresolved. Will they follow the path of rescued projects once on the Landmarks Illinois endangered list like the Solon House, the Mattoon train depot and Lincoln Hall on the University of Illinois campus? Will they be preservation failures like the Jaques House in Urbana, the Baum and Temple buildings in Danville or the Pepsin Syrup factory in Monticello? Or will they continue to hang on indefinitely — but not saved — like the 1917 Bresee Tower in Danville and the 1870 Mumford House on the UI campus?