Grace Road Church buys elegant Lyric Theatre | Culture

Rochester Lyric Opera confirmed Thursday that it has completed the sale of the Lyric Theatre to Grace Highway Church.

Lyric Opera purchased the building at 440 East Ave. for $1.two million in 2015, with the intention of working with the 900-seat auditorium for its personal performances and renting it to outside the house businesses. When the building was in fact a property for opera, as nicely as by the Rochester International Jazz Festival and the Rochester Fringe Festival, it never ever attained the amounts of use envisioned by Lyric Opera.

The theater, earlier the property of 1st Church of Christ, Scientist, is an architectural marvel that has escaped the see of several Rochesterians because its opening a hundred years ago.

The building was the inspiration for the Eastman Theatre, specifically the Palladium ceiling around the Lyric Theatre auditorium, which is pretty much the similar as the one in Kodak Corridor at Eastman Theatre. The two structures also share the similar pink clay-tile roofs and four significant columns at the entrance of the building.

In accordance to Sue Cotroneo, RLO’s founder and taking care of director, the team will continue to accomplish at the location, which Grace Highway Church will open to other groups as nicely.

Jeff Spevak is WXXI’s Arts & Existence editor and reporter. He can be attained at [email protected].