Dreamland Theater to be dismantled

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY The interior of the Dreamland Theater this summer. Truss by window by beam the Nantucket Dreamland Foundation should begin delicately dismantling the theater next week in preparation for its reconstruction next fall.

In possession of nearly all the required permits, the NDF is now working on securing a sidewalk and road closure permit.

When the light turns green, Shawmut Design and Construction of Boston, Mass., the contractor that renovated and rebuilt the Nantucket Historical Association's Whaling Museum in 2005, will start taking apart the theater and saving the building parts that can be restored and built back into the building, said Nantucket Dreamland Foundation Executive Director Patty Roggeveen.

"We will be finalizing the demolition and deconstruction plans this week, I believe, and attorney Bill Hunter will be meeting with the fire chief and the police chief to make sure all our boxes are checked," said Roggeveen. "And then once that's done, we're putting our fence up and things will get pretty intense pretty quickly; we'll have a big crane up."

Shawmut will use its closings permit to block off Oak Street to use a crane to carefully remove roof sheathing that can be salvaged, trusses and beams that will likely be taken off island to be strengthened and restored, and windows that are probably going to be refurbished on island by a local woodworker not yet chosen, said Roggeveen.

"There are pieces already that have been tagged that will be taken out," she said. "I think the front façade is due to come off on the ninth of March and the dormers on the 19th."

The NDF wants to have the entire building deconstructed and the parking lot cleared by June 15, the deadline set by the Planning Board by which this project's exterior work must cease for the summer season.

"I think Nantucket as a whole, as a community will start to see the first physical manifestation of this project when the fence goes up and so I think it will drive home pretty dramatically that the Dreamland is going to be rebuilt, that this is going happen," said Bill Hunter, attorney for the Dreamland Foundation.

When construction is allowed to resume on Sept. 15, Roggeveen said Shawmut will begin to set new footings for the foundation, and then start erecting the steel frame of the new building.

The new building, to be rebuilt from new materials and salvageable parts, will feature a 350-seat movie theater on the ground floor and a 170- seat multi-use film and performing arts space on the second and third floors. Inside the Dreamland's addition, there will be a 100-seat conference room, bathrooms, mechanical rooms, outside decks on the second and third floors overlooking the harbor and a landscaped courtyard with trees and bike racks.

Construction fundraising is, however, still in progress with around $8 million of the $23 million needed already raised. NDF board member Peter Palandjian's Intercontinental Development of Brighton, Mass. is donating its services as manager of the entire project. I