Striking presence. The City Council has revamped zoning ordinances for the Fifth Street site of the 700-seat concert and art gallery. Next step: Pouring the concrete foundation,
Hall seen as key in further downtown revival
WINONA, Minn. – The City Council unanimously approved bending city zoning requirements to accommodate construction of a new concert venue, the 700-seat Masterpiece Hall, on Fifth Street near downtown. The rezoning clears the way to start construction and for an inaugural high-brow concert, if all goes well, in May 2025. The concert hall with accompanying art gallery is a $35 million project of Fastenal co-founder Bob Kierlin and Mary Burrichter. Their goal: Help build Winona as a destination city for the arts. In that spirit they built the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in 2006. Kierlin and Burrichter also have noted that the city already has a head start as a culture center with the Great River Shakespeare Festival and also the Beethoven Festival.
Earlier: Zoning variances OK’d for Masterpiece concert hall
Earlier: Fine-tuned Masterpiece Hall design passes hurdle
Earlier: Limbo: What next for Masterpiece Hall
Earlier: Awkward place to be: Preservationists feel fenced in
Lengthy gauntlet
Earlier the project won approval from a gauntlet of city agencies that considered arguments against the plan, mostly about whether the straight-edge architecture comported with the historic downtown area. There were also questions whether the hall’s bulk would dwarf the existing classic library next door. The site is the former home of the Winona Junior High School auditorium, which has been razed but also memorialized as historically significant. Critics pointed to the old auditorium as a model to be revered as to in the design of Masterpiece Hall.