PORT TOWNSEND — Key City Players, Port Townsend’s oldest community theater, has much to celebrate these days.
Key City Players board president Ian Keith is enthused about the group’s newly acquired property at 1128 Lawrence St.
It is where the Key City Players hope to build a 3,000-square-foot 150-seat theater, with an offstage shop to build sets, a rehearsal room, office space and plenty of storage.
The target date for breaking ground is by the end of this year, or perhaps early next year, he said.
Keith’s early estimate of the theater’s cost: $1.8 million, through the assistance of grants and private donations.
“Many other sites we looked at weren’t zoned for this use,” said Keith of the four-year-long search for property.
“Here, we have a site that’s perfect.”
Height restriction dropped
The nearly 50-year-old theater troupe acquired the site with an old home on it as of July 31, with the help of City Councilwoman Michelle Sandoval, a Port Townsend real estate business owner.
Keith said, as planned, the home would be sold and relocated, clearing the site for a theater with a roof high enough to support sets
The $500,000 property on an 85 by 100-foot lot just two doors south of Uptown Theater would allow the theater group to build a structure of up to 50 feet, said Keith.