ABOVE: The Fairmont Opera House will be temporarily closing at the end of October for repairs to be made to its roof.

FAIRMONT– The Fairmont Opera House (FOH) will soon revert to limited in-facility operations for an unknown period of time so that necessary repairs can be made to its roof. As a result of this, the oldest operating theater in the state of Minnesota is launching into a capital campaign to raise the needed funds.

Executive Director, Blake Potthoff, explained that in the early 2000s the weight bearing points of the roof were fixed and this time around, the trusses themselves need to be fixed.

“In late October and into early November we’ll be installing some shoring methods; there will be large pillars that are temporarily installed to lift and support the centers of the trusses so that those can be repaired. By doing so, we’ll need to limit the facility for meetings and renters,” Potthoff said.

The Fairmont Opera House’s office will be temporarily housed in the former Gene’s Cleaners building, which is on the northeast side of the facility. This will both allow an accessible place for people to walk into and purchase tickets, as well as allow for Opera House staff to be out of the way of construction.

Potthoff stressed that the roof is not anticipated to fail under its own weight, rather the work is a preventative measure that the board of directors is taking to prevent it from failing under specific conditions, including sustained winds of 50 or 60 mph.

“The biggest concern is if we have a wild and crazy winter with a lot of snow. We actually have new installation up there now so the snow may get thicker and deeper than it has in the past,” said board chair Bob Luedtke. “Safety is our biggest concern.”

While thoughts about citizen safety is the largest driver behind the project, caring for the facility itself is also a priority.

“That’s part of our organization’s mission. Not only to present arts and culture in our community, but to also be good stewards and keepers of the facility as well,” said Potthoff.

The Fairmont Opera House is over 122 years old. Potthoff said they would like all of the needed repairs to be made by the time of the facility’s 125th anniversary in 2026.

Luedtke pointed out that the building is on the historic registry so they have a duty to maintain the facility.

Because of this, there are special funding sources the Fairmont Opera House can look into. Potthoff has already started grant writing for the project.

“We’ll be doing local, state, regional and national fundraising to try to bring money in from anywhere we can get it,” Potthoff said.

He said some people may question the $1 million in funds the facility got from the Milbrandt Estate back in 2018. Potthoff said they’ve always acted in the best interest of the organization at the moment they’ve made a decision.

“That money was really unexpected and gracious and we’ve spent a lot of it to update and maintain the facility to this point. We also put a significant portion into our endowment fund,” Potthoff said.

Some of the upgrades with those funds include updates to the Lightfoot Lounge, new paint throughout the facility and new lights and sounds to enhance the patron experience.

“We’ve done a lot of work to continue to maintain this facility and survive through Covid,” Potthoff pointed out. “When we were shut down for such a long period of time, there were a lot of organizations that didn’t survive and we were very fortunate to have community support, Milbrandt and other donors throughout that time period to help us survive.”

As for how much money is actually required, a capital fundraising campaign is aiming to raise $2 million to complete the full scope of repairs. Beyond that, Luedtke said it’s not known yet as they’re still in the process of looking at exactly what the project will require and creating a design for how the repairs will be made.

“Then it has to be let out for bids to determine what the cost to execute the plan is,” Luedtke said.

Potthoff pointed out that with how old the building is, there’s a good chance that once they open it up more work will be discovered. A similar situation happened when the county was making repairs to the Martin County Courthouse dome and roof.

“There are things that will be unknown before they’re known and that’s part of maintaining any facility, let alone one of this age,” Potthoff said.

While the work is being done, The Fairmont Opera House will still try to offer some of its programs and shows, albeit in a different facility.

“Right now the programming that we have scheduled for the remainder of the year, we’re working to relocate that. We’ve been working with our renters to relocate them,” Potthoff said.

He’s had some conversations about holding the annual Fairmont Area Community Theater (FACT) summer community production at the Performing Arts Center at Fairmont High School.

Of course, there are still a lot of unknowns as to how much the Opera House can do while the work is gong on and Potthoff said it’s somewhat dependent on the size of the trusses, which is why they’re saying there will be limited in-facility operations so that they’re not restricting themselves on the front end.

“We’ll do everything we can practically do, but safety is the concern,” Luedtke said.

The timeline is also in the air as Potthoff said it’s fundraising-dependent.

“This is the thing that’s right in front of us. We have to do it. It depends how much money we can raise. There may be additional things that come after this but we know that this is the most pressing and current issue we have to deal with,” Potthoff said.

Luedtke said that the decision to limit operations was not something that the board took lightly.

“This part of the world has the tendency that when something gets old you tear it down and build something new. In this part of the state, we’ve lost a lot of historical buildings. We’re trying to reverse that a little bit. This is a cool, old building,” Luedtke said.

Potthoff spoke about the number of memories that have been made in the 122 years of the Fairmont Opera House’s history.

“That will all be different if a new building is put here. You can’t replicate those or change people’s memories of this facility,” he said.

He said it’s their job to preserve the history and the memories and experiences that people have had at the Fairmont Opera House for over a century.

“It’s not about me as the executive director or about the board. We get the opportunity to make a decision to fix this building so that kids my daughter’s age, who is two-and-a-half, can perform on this stage for 20 years like I did. That’s the gravity of the situation. We’re saying, we’re not doing this for me, we’re doing this for all of the people and kids who haven’t had those experience,” Potthoff said.

Information about the progress of the facility will be made available on the Fairmont Opera House’s website and social media pages. Those who wish to make a donation to the project can do so at fairmontoperahouse.org/capital-donate.