Today it was announced via 40th Ward Alderman Patrick O'Connor that TimeLine has ended our involvement with developer Svigos Asset Management's project to renovate the Lyman Trumbull Elementary School in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood.
It had previously been announced in August 2015 that Svigos had won the bid process to purchase Trumbull School from Chicago's Board of Education, and that they intended to partner with us to develop a mixed-use project featuring a combination of residential components and a new home for TimeLine.
TimeLine embarked on a complex, year-long collaboration to develop financial and architectural plans that could meet both the theatre's artistic and operational needs as well as the developer's needs, which included pursuing federal historic preservation tax credits. After extensive and exhaustive work, it has become clear that there is an inherent conflict between what renovations are allowed in order to meet the requirements related to the developer's tax credits, and what renovations are essential to meet TimeLine's goal of building a flexible and intimate home that supports the technical and audience engagement needs of our professional theatre.
We're disappointed, because we believe that Trumbull could have been an ideal new home for TimeLine, but this partnership was not the right fit. We relished the idea of bringing our mission of exploring history to life through the revitalization of a historic building, as well as creating a new community gathering place in the vibrant Andersonville neighborhood.
TimeLine plans to be a vital contributor to the cultural life of Chicago for a very long time, and we are determined to find a new home that will support that. Our company has built a reputation for making sound business decisions that have allowed us to flourish into our current 20th Anniversary season. It became clear that the decision to end our involvement with this project for Trumbull School, while difficult, is the right one for TimeLine in the long term.
We are deeply grateful to Alderman Patrick O'Connor and to the City of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development for their thoughtful guidance and support throughout this process. To read today's announcement from the alderman about this development, please click here, and for previous updates about the Trumbull project on this blog, please click here.
Looking ahead, TimeLine is steadfast in our commitment to identify a new home that can support our mission and growing audience well into the future. The company's focus now turns to working with all of our supporters to find the next opportunity that will make that vision for a new home a reality.
If you have any questions or comments to share, please email us or comment below. Thank you for your support of TimeLine Theatre!
My wife and I are fans and I work for a nonprofit supporting older adults in Andersonville. I'd like to talk with you about possibly moving Timeline to our campus.