The Journey to Renovate Fort Flagler’s WWII Theater

Rep Tharinger came away an advocate of the theater renovation—partly because he was impressed that that this would be a true partnership between WSP and FoFF. And so nearly $200,000 was allocated for the theater in the final capital budget.

Alex McMurry, head of historic preservation for WSP, was designated as project lead and the detailed planning began. Alex and his team were great to work with and FoFF was closely involved in the effort, making a number of suggestions to improve the design. It took almost a year but in the end we had a set of plans ready to send out for bids by qualified contractors.

Another big piece of advocacy work was ahead: we had to get about $1.4 million appropriated in the State capital budget for construction. We failed to get the money in the capital budget passed by the legislature in 2023, but were successful getting the money appropriated in the following year’s supplemental budget. A big boost for that effort came from Mark Brown, a key member of the Parks Commission at the time, who pushed hard to have the Commission add Flagler’s theater to the short list of projects recommended to the Governor.

Now, with the money in hand, WSP could get the construction process underway. At the start of 2025 the low bidder, Vancouver based firm EvoDesign, was hired and began work.

The building was in tough shape. Decades of wind-driven rain had caused extensive rot in the South wall of the building. The first task was to replace the rotten framing with new—and there was a lot of it on that South wall! All of the building’s siding was removed, the buiding was insulated for the first time in its history and three layers of roofing were torn off and replaced. Windows were rebuilt and new doors and entrance stairs were added at each entrance. The space formerly occupied by the furnace was replaced with two ADA accessible bathrooms (the building didn’t have them before). The original flimsy fiberboard paneling covering the building’s interior walls and ceiling was replaced with sheet rock, a big improvement.