The new Triumvirate Theater received a big boost in cost savings over the weekend thanks to construction materials donated by an Anchorage Church which has been scheduled for demolition. The reclaimed materials, which include everything from crown molding to hardwood from a gym floor, will save the local troupe tens of thousands of dollars in construction costs.
“My wife saw on Facebook that they were going to demolish the Brighton Chapel, which is right up there by the LDS temple in Anchorage, and everything was gonna go,” said Triumvirate President, Joe Rizzo. “I got in contact with the guy that was in charge of giving all this stuff up, and they said, ‘Okay, on this day, that’s when everybody’s gonna get here. All these organizations are coming to like, get what’s on their list. And so we said okay [and] I put together a group of guys to go up there and help me.”
The Brayton Chapel in Anchorage is being torn down to make way for the construction of a new temple that was announced in Jan. 2023, but before demolition begins, the church made the salvage offer to non-profits around the state.
When the work was all said and done, Rizzo says his contingent of helpers came home with two truckloads of materials, including solid oak doors, molding, a stage curtain, theater seats, hardwood from the church’s gym to be repurposed as stage flooring, and more.
Several men from the community partook in the daylong project, including Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor, Peter Micciche. “These materials are a godsend, literally breathing life into a lot of other projects around the state, much like ours,” said Mayor Micciche. “What looks like not much here will save us 10s of thousands of dollars and will be put to work enriching the lives of young people and giving them a purpose for years to come.”
The original Triumvirate Theater was destroyed by a fire in 2021, but the community rallied behind the rebuild effort and with their donations and some help from a Rasmussen Foundation Grant, the new theater held a groundbreaking ceremony last August.
According to Rizzo, the design for the rebuilt theater is approximately 95% complete, and once the troupe receives the finished designs they’ll begin negotiating the construction contract with Blazy Construction. He said Blazy estimates they will be ready to turn the new structure back over to Triumvirate in December of 2024 at which time a team of volunteers from the performers outfit and the community will enter the home stretch, finishing all the interior work before the theater is ready to open.
