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A CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS STAFF REPORT APPLICATION -- 1.998-0129 PROPERTY -- 211 N. Michigan Street South Bend, IN OWNER -- Morris Performing Arts Center DESIGNATION -- LL RATING -- Outstanding 0/13 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE/HISTORIC CONTEXT The Palace Theatre was developed in 1921 and 1.922 by the Palace Theatre Corporation. The Palace Theatre Corporation was formed by several prominent local businessmen in 1921 with the purpose of acquiring, building and maintaining opera houses, theaters and other places of entertainment. The new group engaged Jacob Handelman, a promoter from Chicago, to handle the fund raising and actual purchasing of the needed land. They then hired J.S. Aroner to design the theater and the Ralph Sollitt Company to build it. In 1921 the Palace Theatre Corporation, through Jacob Handelman purchased the land at the corner. of Colfax and Michigan from Alexander Lippman by way .of a 99 year lease. Immediately. after the purchase the contractor began construction of the new theater. The'.Palace Theatre was constructed to show moving pictures and was also the new home for the Orpheum Theater, a vaudeville theater that had opened in 1910. When the, theater was finished the Palace Theatre Corporation leased space to various entrepreneurs, for a restaurant,'jewelry store and a furniture store. The grand opening of the Palace Theatre occurred in 1922, 2,700 people attended the first*show. In 1929 the first movie with sound also known as a "Talkie" was shown in the Palace Theatre. The last vaudeville show that was performed in the Palace Theatre occurred on March 1, 1930. In the 1920's the Palace Theatre Corporation was in financial trouble and 'by 1930 the property went into receivership and eventually sold to the Orpheum Theater Corporation in August of 1930. In 1933 a suit to foreclose on the $875,000.00 mortgage was file by the Union Trust Company and over the next five years the theatre was operated by a receiver. In 1935, the Palace Building's 99 year lease was surrendered to the Lippman Family of Valparaiso, after a bomb was exploded in the Palace Cafe .that heavily damaged the property. In 1938 the theater was being operated by the South Bend Theatre, Inc. In 1959 the owners announced that the theater building would be demolished -at which time the. E.M. Morris Foundation stepped in and purchased the property. and subsequently presented the Theatre Building to the City of South Bend. — - -- .The City also tried to purchase the Palace Building for use as a convention center,.but, the remaining Lippman heir refused the City's offer. On August 5,.1959. the name of the Palace Theatre was changed to the Morris Municipal Auditorium -and was dedicated the Morris Civic Auditorium on October 20, 1960.