Stevensville community theater will stay open for now

By Michael Howell

The potential closure of the Stevensville Playhouse theater due to questions about the structural integrity of the building was recently averted when, at a meeting on Friday, February 6 arranged by Mayor Gene Mim Mack, Stevensville Building Inspector Dennis Monroe got all the parties involved to agree to a mitigation plan with scheduled dates for completing certain inspections of the structure and performing any repairs found necessary.
The issue first arose for the town when adjacent building owners Rhonda and Phil Henderson, of Stevensville Hardware, made a complaint about the building, including an engineering report by Beaudette Consulting Engineers that concluded the building was unsafe. The Hendersons were led to consider the south wall of the adjacent theater building as they had their own plans for expansion that would mean building a wall up next to the theater. According to the engineering report, however, the south wall of the theater was leaning nine and half inches over the property line. The Hendersons have also sued the Stevensville Playhouse over the issue and that lawsuit is ongoing in District Court.
Monroe notified the mayor about the complaint and did his own inspection of the building. He also gave the Stevensville Playhouse board of directors a chance to provide their own engineering report, which they did. In that report, Linda Geranios of Lacy & Ebling Engineering out of Great Falls agreed with some of the basic findings in the Beaudette report. She agreed that further investigation was needed, but disagreed with the notion that the building was under threat of immediate collapse.
Mayor Mim Mack said at the beginning of the meeting that by bringing all the parties together he was hoping for some framework for addressing agreed-upon structural issues, perhaps a draft of a mitigation plan for confirming that the concerns are not valid, but if they were, a plan to make the needed repairs. He said for it to work it would have to address the Hendersons’ and their engineer’s concerns about the south wall. He said it could benefit the Stevensville Playhouse as well by providing some definite direction and some hard figures of the costs for making structural improvements that everyone agrees might be needed.
With this knowledge and the needed figures, he said, “It gives those in the community that want to help the Playhouse a way to get rolling.”
Monroe presented a draft of what he hoped all the parties could agree to, including the two engineering firms.
“My main concern is the life safety issues,” he told them. “The last thing we want is for someone to go in there and have something happen due to snow load or wind or whatever. Nobody wants that.” He said it was his responsibility and he had the authority to issue a notice of dangerous building and notice of abatement and close the building down immediately until all issues were resolved. He said in making that decision he depended heavily on the opinion of professional engineers.
In the end both engineers agreed that there was enough evidence to indicate that certain issues of potential structural deficiency should be investigated and corrected if they were deficient. Steve Brachman of Beaudette Engineering agreed that his most immediate concern related to the safety issues was related to potential snow loads and now that winter was mostly over it removes some of the urgency. But he said concerns about seismic activity remain unabated.
What emerged from the meeting in final draft was a schedule requiring that the Stevensville Playhouse take action to:
• Verify that the walls have approved attachment to the roof structure and that the attachment structure meets the approval of an engineer’s specifications by March 20, 2015.
• If there are no attachments of the roof-to-wall or existing attachments do not meet engineering criteria, approved connections are to be installed by May 1, 2015.
• Verify that the made-up-beams (4 – 2×12’s) have attachments to the pilasters that meet with engineering specifications by May 29, 2015.
• If there are no attachments or existing attachments do not meet engineering criteria, install attachments as specified no later than by July 3, 2015.
• Verify that the truss joint connection has been upgraded as per specified engineering guidelines by July 31, 2015.
Stevensville Playhouse Board President Susan McCauley told the Star on Sunday that the Playhouse Board has agreed to the mitigation plan and has already determined that the roof structure does not have approved attachments to the walls. They have gotten a preliminary estimate of $4,000 from their engineer in Great Falls as the cost for the engineering design for installing attachments. Another source gave McCauley a rough estimate of the total cost of repairs at close to $100,000.
“It’s not going to be easy,” McCauley said about raising the money for repairs.
She said that anyone interested in donating to the theater may do so on the internet where they have a web page (www.stevensvilleplayhouse.org) with a Paypal button or on Facebook where a gofundme account has been set up (www.gofundme.com/helptheplayhouse).
According to McCauley, the board will be meeting in the next few days to plan out the details of a fundraising strategy. She said they could especially use the services of a grant writer if there is a willing volunteer out there. They are also meeting with the Mayor Mim Mack who has expressed a willingness to work with the group in any way possible.
She said meeting the town’s deadlines is a daunting proposition. “I’m not 100% sure we can do it,” said McCauley, “but we are going to try our best.”