Throughout its 166-year history, Thalian Hall has been in a near-constant state of evolution.

Shane Fernando, who leads the performing arts venue, remembers his predecessor Tony Rivenbark often saying that Thalian Hall would never be finished as long as it continued to serve the Wilmington community.

“Every 10, 20 years, there’s another renovation,” said Fernando, the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts CEO. “And that’s helped keep her relevant in front of our community, and why she’s one of the oldest theaters in the country and is still a powerhouse.”

Now, planning is underway for yet another renovation that would expand Thalian operations into a roughly 17,000-square-foot wing occupied until recently by the city of Wilmington. City staff left Thalian Hall for offices in Skyline Center, following the city’s acquisition of the campus that formerly housed PPD and then Thermo Fisher Scientific.

The Thalian Hall space is one of several properties vacated by the city in recent years, following the move to Skyline Center. While the city still owns Thalian Hall, officials have declared other properties surplus, pursuing sales to help pay for Skyline Center’s $68 million price tag.

So far, city officials have sold six surplus properties with proceeds totaling $3.1 million. Another property is currently under contract for $1.7 million, and Aubrey Parsley, the city’s director of economic development, said the city plans to market more surplus properties in the coming months.
 

FIRE STATIONS, PROPERTIES GET NEW LIFE

The city sold off a slew of properties over the last year as it consolidated its offices inside Skyline Center.

Jon Spetrino purchased the building at 1502 Wellington Ave. last June to house his promotional design company DazTech Promotions. Built in the 1970s, the structure served as a fire station before, in recent years, housing offices for the city’s engineering department.

Spetrino, DazTech’s president and CEO, said the company has rented production space in the Wilmington area for more than 25 years, but he’s always wanted to own his building.

“It’s been in the back of my head, but new construction was way too costly,” Spetrino said. “When this building popped up, in terms of being available, it was absolutely like, ‘Let’s just do this now.’”

He bought the building for $525,000 through an upset bid process. After a few interior upfits, Spetrino’s operations are up and running. The garage that once housed fire trucks now serves as DazTech’s production floor for its embroidery and screen-printing operations.

Spetrino said the move has positioned his company for growth.

“I’m able to comfortably employ more people and organize our productions in a way where we can turn productions around faster and offer more services to our clientele,” he said.

Across town, the renovation of another former fire station is nearing completion.

The building at 302 Willard St. operated as a fire station for decades before becoming offices for the city’s parks and recreation department in the 1980s. When the property was declared surplus, JT Fritsch was looking for offices for Boot Scrap, his sustainability-focused digital production company.

Fritsch and his dad, who works in commercial real estate, ultimately bid on the property. They closed on the building last February, buying it for nearly $753,000.

Since then, the building has undergone a “functional restoration,” Fritsch said, removing the office cubicles that filled the first floor, uncovering the building’s wooden floors and preserving other fixtures, including part of the station’s fire pole.

Boot Scrap has its offices on the building’s second floor and plans to rent the shell space on the first floor after final renovations wrap up this spring.

Fritsch said he appreciates that the project holds space for small creative-focused businesses like his.

“(I’m) excited that it’s a safe, functional space now that can foster more creativity here in Wilmington,” he said, “and the more that is created here, the more videos and art that’s here, the better for us and the community.”

Other surplus properties also have new owners. Last February, Urban Building Corp LLC purchased the three-story home at 222 and 226 S. Front St., a building that formerly housed the Taste of Country restaurant, from the city for $600,000. The home was conveyed to the city in 2023 as part of a legal settlement with its former owner Peter Koke.

In October, Wilmington’s Historic Preservation Commission approved a proposed home renovation and the addition of a three-story apartment building on the adjacent lot.

The N.C. State Ports Authority purchased another surplus tract at 1536 S. Front St. for $495,000 in January 2024. According to a port spokesperson, the port intends to use it as a “buffer between the port and the neighboring community.”
 

BIG PLANS FOR THALIAN

Although still in the planning stages, Fernando has big plans for Thalian’s former city-occupied space. With more than 40 groups renting the venue for performances and events, Fernando knows the current structure doesn’t meet existing demand.
“We had over 700 events last year here at the hall,” he said, “and we are out of space, out of time.”

Fernando envisions converting the city council’s current meeting room into a mid-sized theater – what he calls a “Goldilocks space.”

“What our community is lacking is a 300-plus seat house for performances,” Fernando said. “We have a lot of 100 seaters, 200 seaters, and then it jumps to the Thalian Hall stage, which is around 550 to 600.”

A new council meeting room is planned on Skyline Center’s ground floor. The proposed council chamber would hold more than 200 people.

On the basement level, Fernando envisions converting the former city offices into a recording studio, workshop and meeting spaces to support the development of new theater, dance and music.
“There is no space like that here in the region,” Fernando said, “and very few in the American South, where artists can come to workshop and build new work.”
Plans for the first floor include a listening room with a stage for live music. Fernando envisions the space as a coffee shop by day and a martini bar at night. Thalian’s lobby will also see renovations, and the venue plans to add dressing rooms and a scenic lab.
With initial schematics complete, architectural and engineering drawings are now in the works. Fernando said he will be able to estimate the project’s price tag once those are complete, but he expects the project will cost “many millions.” Thalian Hall plans to launch a capital campaign in the coming months to fund the plans.
 

FUTURE TRANSACTIONS

Surplus properties at 305, 315 and 319 Chestnut St. could be getting a grocery store. The city remains under contract on the tracts with Cape Fear Holdings LLC.

The limited liability company, which has ties to Cape Fear Commercial and Cape Fear Development, submitted a $1.7 million bid for the site that includes a provision restricting “the principal use of the property to a retail grocery supermarket for a duration of at least 10 years.”

The city expects to close on the Chestnut Street properties within the next year, Parsley said.

Moving forward, Parsley said the city’s near-term real estate priorities include the sale of vacant tracts at 1001 and 1021 N. Front St., both part of the Skyline Center campus. That land should hit the market in the coming weeks, Parsley said.

The city is also working to list the former Southeast Command Center at 2451 College Road and is focused on leasing up 115 N. Third St.

“We’ve been trying to sell that one here for a little while,” he said, “just not having good luck with it with the current occupancy rate.”

Last summer, city officials approved “on-call contracts” with several commercial real estate firms to help market the surplus properties.

“That’s going to give us a little bit more horsepower,” he said, “to really go out and market these properties and try to generate offers for the upset bid process.”