Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra unveils renovation plans for century-old Pantages theatre

CBC

10-06-2025

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has released the design plans for what it hopes will become a new home for some of its performances.
The orchestra, which rents its current performance space at the 2,300-seat Centennial Concert Hall in the city's Exchange District, is looking to move across the street to the currently closed Pantages Playhouse theatre, at the corner of Main Street and Market Avenue.
The WSO said in a release Tuesday as part of a long-term agreement as the theatre's "managing tenant," it plans to rehearse and perform many of its programs in the restored venue, which will have nearly 1,100 seats.
"The entire stage area will have both the acoustic aspects for … orchestral concerts, but also, like, soft-seat concerts of folk and blues and roots groups and jazz," WSO executive director Angela Birdsell said in an interview with CBC Radio's Up to Speed.
"It is going to be a spectacular, intelligent-focused marrying of this beloved, historic venue with all of the amenities of a 1,080-seat venue that we do not have in the city."
The orchestra has long said the acoustical shell at the Centennial Concert Hall is in desperate need of an upgrade.
The new design plans, led by Number Ten Architectural Group, involved working with theatre design and acoustic experts, as well as digital and audio-video consultants "with experience transforming vaudeville-era theatres into modernized venues," the WSO's news release said.
"You don't have to love the orchestra to be excited about this project, because it's hard to find people that don't have a story about Pantages," Birdsell said.
"There are so many millions of stories out there that people have of an experience in this incredible hall.… I bet you there are a lot of first-date stories."
Pantages Playhouse, which opened in 1914, was once an important stop for vaudeville performers. Buster Keaton, Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Laurel are among the stars who tread the boards at the theatre, which was named a National Historic Site of Canada in 1989.
It closed in 2018, and a design team began working on the building in 2023, the WSO's Tuesday news release said.
The symphony said it still expects to perform some of its bigger concerts at the Centennial Concert Hall.
Project to cost $55-$60M
The Performing Arts Consortium of Winnipeg, a charitable organization, assumed responsibility for the management of Pantages in February 1998, until the city agreed to sell it for $530,000 to two businessmen in 2019.
That original deal had to be renegotiated in 2020 because of a snafu involving the protection of a monument to the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike in front of the theatre, and in July of that year, the city said the owners had agreed to sell Pantages for $1 to the consortium, which promised to raise $10-$15 million to restore it and install a management team to operate it.
The estimated cost for the project is now between $55-$60 million.
The WSO said it and the performance consortium have been working with all three levels of government to raise roughly half of the funds needed for the renovation, with the rest to be raised from the private sector.
The city allocated $87,000 for capital renovations at the theatre in 2024, with an additional $250,000 allocated annually for 2025-27 as part of a fund to strengthen the city's art sector and the downtown.
Nearly $15 million has been raised in private commitments so far, Birdsell said.
"We have applications out with the federal government and we're working with the provincial government," she said. "We absolutely need governments to step up and help us with this project. It is a gift to this province and to the people in this city."
Tuesday's announcement did not include any timelines, but Birdsell has previously said it's unlikely the theatre will reopen before 2028.