Theater, kitchen are next for renovation of Veterans Memorial Building

NEBRASKA CITY – The Nebraska City City Council approved a grant application for the next phase of renovations at the Veterans Memorial Building.

Community organizer Jim Kuhn the current phase includes an elevator, electrical upgrade, heating and air equipment and a lot of plumbing.

“A lot of pipes for all the new plumbing because there is new plumbing on all three floors and they are ADA. There used to be a stool and sink, now in the basement there’s a men’s room, a ladies’ room, a family bathroom. It’s quite a change.”

In 2019, 120 windows and 11 doors were installed matching the historic look of the building, which was built in 1929 in honor of Veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I.

Kuhn: “Everybody saw the new windows and they think the project is done, but it’s just begun. We have a long ways to go. The elevator goes to all three floors, so there are a lot blocks involved and that building is mostly all concrete, so they have cut out the floor once they get the blocks up to the ceiling and then put the blocks up until they get to the next ceiling so it takes quite a bit of time.

Kuhn said a planning grant is being sought from the Civic and Community Center Financing Fund for the commercial kitchen and stage.

Kuhn: “The big picture is the kitchen is in the basement where it originally was only we’ve doubled the size of it. We’re going to make it bigger, so, if you want to come in and rent the kitchen for an hour, you can. If you want to come in an rent it every Wednesday for a food truck on Thursday or if you want to come in a bake for a wedding party you can rent out our kitchen and the whole place.”

He said the stage will be a big part of the building’s future.

Kuhn: “The stage is a whole other thing because we have a committee set up with local people and some out of Lincoln that are entertainers, directors, producers. They want to make this a regional area for that stage to put on plays, to put on dances. It’s going to be pretty amazing.”

The public was last invited for a sneak peak at work on Veterans Day this year.

Kuhn: “We opened it up a little bit so people could come in because they remember what it was like. Now they seen a lot of the changes as they are taking place. It’s amazing. We try to do that periodically and we’ll continue to do that as things progress.”

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