Morning Sentinel
PITTSFIELD Faulty roof causes town to close theater
BY SCOTT MONROE
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 11/25/2008

PITTSFIELD -- The roof the 93-year-old Pittsfield Community Theatre is dangerously unstable and needs immediate repairs.

That's the assessment from a new engineering report the town government received this weekend. In response, the Town Council convened an emergency meeting Monday night and decided to temporarily shut down the theater immediately.

Town councilors also decided to move ahead with another study of the short-term fixes the roof needs as soon as possible. It will likely be another four or five months before that work can be finished and the theater reopened.

Councilor Donna Chale said it's a "shame" to have to close the community theater, but with the prospect of a roof collapse, "we can't take a chance like that."

The town pays resident Donna Dunphy to manage the theater, which shows movies and hosts concerts and performances.

The report on the theater's roof is from Sewall, an engineering company based in Old Town. Company representatives Alina Watt and Mike Young explained the report Monday night and answered questions.

According to the report, the Pittsfield Community Theatre's roof "is visibly stressed beyond its load capacity and public use of the building should be suspended."

The report says most of the roof's wood trusses "may not be relied upon for structural capacity" and there's evidence of water damage in the attic and on walls.

The building's roof and canopy "are significantly below the structural load capacities" required by current building codes, according to the report, "and remedial action is required." The report also recommends that snow depths on the roof be kept below 1 foot this winter and a snow monitoring system should be set up to determine snow accumulation.

The "immediate concerns" listed in the report focus on three areas -- bearing plates, steel beams and wood trusses -- and such "stabilization items" would cost an estimated $62,000, according to the report. In addition, renovations to the theater's canopy are recommended at a cost of $20,000.

The age of the roof is unknown, Watt said, but it's likely at least 30 years old, which exceeds the 20 to 25 years it's supposed to last. Young said the company has examined many similar theater roofs in Maine, and "few were in this kind of condition, this bad."

"The roof is structurally in danger, mostly due to the steel that has yielded at some point," Watt said.

The report also suggests three options for bringing the theater up to code requirements and offers "ballpark" cost estimates: renovating the building and roof ($220,000), constructing a new roof over the existing one ($180,000); or removing the existing roof and replacing it with a new one ($250,000). All of those options are too expensive for the town to undertake right now, town officials said.

There may be a way to save the town some money on the short-term stabilization repairs. Sewall officials will research the installation of columns about 1 foot wide both outside and inside the theater's walls as a way to buttress the roof, instead of installing new bearing plates. That additional study would cost the town $9,000 or less.

Though columns would change the look of the theater, "it's going to save you a lot of money," Young told the council.

The report comes just months before a committee was preparing to begin a fundraising campaign for long-term theater renovations. Those plans are still on track, committee members said.

"I hate to say this," said Michelle Carr, a member of the theater committee, "but maybe the shutdown will fuel the fire for fundraising."

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