Officials leading the effort to revitalize the historic Crump Theatre in Columbus have sought guidance from a nonprofit organization that restored a comparable venue in northeastern Indiana that recently won the state’s top restoration prize — and are hoping to replicate its success.
The nonprofit, the Honeywell Foundation, spent several years — and $16 million — to revitalize the Eagles Theatre in Wabash, transforming what officials described as a “pretty dilapidated” building with a “significant lack of maintenance” into an arts and entertainment center that now hosts more than 35 live concerts and performances, over 500 movie showings and more than a dozen private rental events per year, officials said.
Officials involved with the restoration of the Eagles Theatre said they recently toured the Crump Theatre and hosted local officials behind the Crump project who traveled to Wabash to see their theater.
And both groups of officials came away with the same conclusion — the 135-year-old Crump Theatre and the 119-year-old Eagles Theatre have a lot in common.
There are “a lot of similarities for sure” between the two theaters, said Kyle Dubois, chief operating officer at Honeywell Arts and Entertainment, who was the project manager for the Eagles Theatre renovations and recently visited the Crump Theatre.
The five-floor Eagles Theatre opened in 1906 with an auditorium for vaudeville shows on the first floor, a lodge on the top floor and offices and meeting rooms in between, according to Landmark Indiana. The theater was built by the National Fraternal Order of Eagles.
The Eagles Theatre was converted to show movies in the 1920s, officials said. It was later renovated in the Art Deco style.
When the Honeywell Foundation purchased the Eagles Theatre in 2010, the venue was still showing movies but the upper floors had been vacant for decades and had fallen into disrepair — there was a hole in the roof that had caused “tremendous water damage,” the theater’s upper balcony had been closed for safety reasons and its air conditioning and heating systems did not work, officials said.
“It was pretty bad,” Dubois said. “There was some significant lack of maintenance over the years. The roof was not good, so it leaked into the building and had come through a couple floors. …It was pretty dilapidated. The theater itself had plaster holes that you could literally drive a car through that had fallen down.”
“Structurally, (the theater) was fine,” Dubois said. “…It was finished in 1906. From that time, a lot of things needed to be brought up to more current standards.”
Officials spent a couple years planning and then closed the theater for nearly three years to complete the renovations, which included, among other things, installing new plumbing, electrical and fire suppression systems, as well as remediating some mold and asbestos. They also had to contend with a shortage of contractors and some materials.
While officials did whatever they could to restore historical items, some were not salvageable.
Officials were able to restore some windows, elevator doors and hand-painted artwork and moldings, among other items. However, they needed to replace several items with replicas that resembled the theater’s original look, including new double-paned windows and lighting.
“We spent a good amount of time trying to honor that history in the best way we could,” Dubois said. “But to be honest, there was a lot of that history that had been kind of not dealt with or kept up in the past. So, there were certain things we just couldn’t (keep). We had to buy something that looked like it.”
Funding
Although officials encountered a range of challenges throughout the project, they said securing funding was among the most significant.
Only about a quarter of the project’s $16 million price tag came from grants. The Honeywell Foundation received a $3 million grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, a roughly $1 million regional state grant and a $200,000 local grant.
The rest — roughly $12 million — came from private donors and sponsors.
At one point, the organization was raising, on average, about $1 million a month for the project, said Cathy Gatchel, chief development officer at Honeywell Arts and Entertainment, who was involved with the fundraising efforts.
“I’ve been at this for many, many years and by far this was one of the most exciting things I had ever been a part of because we encountered very little no’s,” Gatchel said. “…If you were familiar at all with this building, it was one of these things that you wanted it to survive.”
“We had to get a new marquee, and at first people were like, Oh no, we love the old marquee,’ but this new marquee is just perfect, and it just literally lights up our downtown,” Gatchel said.
Debois said funding “was a big piece” not only to restore the theater but also to run it after the project was completed.
Local effort
While local officials said they see a lot of similarities between the two theaters, they believe efforts to renovate the Crump Theatre will require less work.
Last week, officials announced plans to embark on a project to renovate and transform the Crump Theatre into a viable, year-round live entertainment venue.
The effort, called Project Encore, seeks to build upon several years of grassroots volunteer efforts to stabilize and revamp the theater and is expected to include a “major renovation” of the theater, said Steve Sanders, the project’s director.
Plans for the 700- to 750-seat venue would create new uses for the theater, attract regional acts and would include a fully operational balcony, expanded lobby areas, outdoor areas, event space, state-of-the-art lighting and sound, multiple rental configurations that are expected to include conference and meeting spaces, among other things.
“There has already been a lot of work done (on the Crump), sweat equity and volunteer time to make it look the way it does now, but it’s still far from being a fully functional space,” Sanders said. “I would say from my understanding … just from (Honeywell Foundation officials’) reaction when they first saw our theater and walked through it, ours needs less (work), but it still needs a lot.”
“We are a different facility than them,” Sanders said. “We have similarities, but we have a lot of differences. …They have more finished interior spaces, classrooms, conference rooms, and then they dug a full basement out of hard rock underneath to add a private movie theater.”
Sanders said previously that officials are still working on schematic designs and are unsure exactly how much the renovations would cost, though he expects the project to cost in the millions of dollars.
The Heritage Fund and Columbus Capital Foundation, which owns the Crump Theatre, have engaged engineers and designers to draw up detailed plans to turn the project into a reality, officials said.
Sanders said he anticipates a mix of funding sources for the project.
“Funding has always been the core of any previous attempt at bringing the Crump back to a fully functional space,” Sanders said. “For us, there’s going to be a mix (of funding sources). …The mix will require some private sponsorship. We’re hoping that we can qualify for some grants and some gifts, donations. It would great if we could get some local corporate sponsors on board. The icing on the cake would be if we could somehow get more of a formal collaboration, either public or private, from the city at a certain stage of this, at least to get it over the line. But we’re willing to cross those bridges when we get there.”
The Eagles Theatre opened in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic roiled global supply chains and caused shocks to food and energy prices, which contributed to decades-high inflation.
Gatchel said most of the private donations and sponsors were raised in 2015 and 2016 and the grant funding came in at around the time or earlier. For instance, $16 million in March 2016 would be the equivalent of $21.49 million in March 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator.
Additionally, President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff war on imports from many countries could affect the cost and availability of critical building materials, including steel, aluminum and lumber.
Assessments
Multiple studies on the Crump and what its future could look like have been conducted over roughly the past decade, including some that have given different assessments and recommendations.
In study results released in March 2014, architectural firm Jones & Phillips detailed multiple safety hazards throughout the theater, The Republic reported at the time. The firm gave options to renovate the theater or perhaps tear it down and start over.
The study stated that the Crump lacks a fire sprinkler system and functioning fire escapes. Its mechanical room also was deemed unsafe for people due to water damage, and its stage floor did not meet current structural codes.
In 2020, the Columbus Capital Foundation brought in another firm, ARSEE Engineers, to conduct a “critical review” of a third report that “made claims the building was unsafe, eventually leading to its closure.”
ARSEE Engineers evaluated the structural integrity of the theater and what it would take to stabilize it and make it safe so it could be re-opened. They reached a different conclusion than Jones & Phillips, finding that the Crump is in “generally good condition and well worth saving.”
The first stated in the 2020 report that “the building was actually constructed such that it met or exceeded good design practices of the day and with the exception of the roof, is performing quite well. We are confident it can be saved and re-opened.”
However, the firm said it found several issues that would need to be fixed before the theater could be reopened, including “significant deterioration of the wood roof structure,” though some of the roof trusses supporting the roof could not be observed due to ductwork that reportedly is “covered with asbestos,” the report states.
Additionally, steel fire escapes also would need to be reconstructed if the theater’s balcony is to be reopened to the public.
Sanders said he expects more information about the new project to be released in the coming months and plans to hold a public open house at the Crump on May 29.
“It has been a collaborative effort for several years now,” Sanders said. “We did have a lot of emotion and passion that surfaced after our news last week, and that’s not a bad thing. We just really encourage people to understand that no one is here to tear down the Crump. This effort exists to preserve the Crump, and to do what the Crump needs to be a fully operational and viable venue.”
“We also can’t kid ourselves that it’s not fully functional, and we can’t have a viable profit-loss statement if we can only sell 300 seats, and we can only do it during certain times of the year because we don’t have air conditioning or centralized heat,” Sanders said. “So, hopefully during our open house, we can really address any concerns that people might have.”