The Manitoba government announced on Tuesday that it was investing $15 million into the restoration and renovation of the Pantages Playhouse Theatre\u00a0as plans continue to advance to reopen the theatre and make it the new home for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an announcement made in the theatre\u2019s lobby, Premier\u00a0Wab\u00a0Kinew and\u00a0Sport, Culture,\u00a0Heritage\u00a0and Tourism Minister Nellie Kennedy\u00a0announced the commitment alongside\u00a0a\u00a0slew\u00a0of representatives from arts organizations\u00a0that make up the Performing Arts Consortium\u00a0of Winnipeg (PAC), the organization overseeing the theatre\u2019s revitalization project.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have a vision for a downtown that\u2019s safe and friendly and welcoming, where the safety is advanced by bringing\u00a0more\u00a0people downtown, having a critical mass of Winnipeggers and Manitobans being patrons to the arts,\u201d said Kinew, \u201cand so, when there\u2019s a great group of\u00a0people advancing a project like this, it\u2019s easy to say yes to that kind of investment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The overall health of the downtown is also front of mind for the members of the PAC. \u201cWe want to reanimate this corner,\u201d said PAC director and WSO board chair Curt Vossen. \u201cWe want to program this theater successfully for 250 to 300+ days\u00a0and nights a year and bring over a thousand people downtown back to our core, back to our city and have them feel comfortable and involved in what is really a remarkable downtown and will be as we go forward again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pantages Playhouse is a cornerstone of our arts and culture landscape, a cultural landmark and a piece of Manitoba’s history,\u201d said Kennedy. \u201cFor over a century, it has been a home for music, theatre,\u00a0dance\u00a0and community gatherings. This investment will help modernize the facility while preserving the heritage features that makes it so incredibly special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n
Next steps being taken\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plans to revitalize the Pantages Playhouse Theatre were first unveiled in June of 2025 when the PAC\u00a0(who\u00a0acquired\u00a0the theatre after its closure in 2018) began to assess the feasibility of the project. After consultations with a design team led by Number TEN Architectural Group, a capital campaign\u00a0pursuing a mixture of public and private funds was undertaken to raise the $60+ million dollars estimated to\u00a0modernize the theatre and turn it into a more multi-use space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Renderings of the revitalized Pantages Theatre by Number 10 Architectural Group. (Nolan Kehler\/PNN)<\/p>\n
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Angela Birdsell, who was recently appointed CEO of the WSO and the Pantages Playhouse, says that the next steps are to secure the last steps of public funding \u2013 a $22 million ask\u00a0from the federal government which she says will take the project to 80 percent of its goal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel very, very confident that there are a great many people interested in this project and that the general public will deliver in spades,\u201d said Birdsell.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest updated timeline has the PAC at 30 months out from construction drawings, with the earliest estimates at completion and reopening the Pantages stretching into 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Manitoba government announced on Tuesday that it was investing $15 million into the restoration and renovation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-649868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}