Wilmington City Council holds last meeting at Thalian Hall

August 19, 2025

WWAY News,

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Wilmington City Council concluded their very last meeting at Thalian Hall with a presentation by Shane Fernando, the Chief Executive Officer at Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, about the future of the historic building.

From now on, Wilmington City Council meetings will be held at the city’s Skyline Center property at 929 N. Front St. The city purchased the 12-story building, its parking deck, and two adjacent lots for $68 million in July 2023.

Thalian Hall will undergo a major renovation that will use the existing space that has been employed by Wilmington City Council.

“Our plans include the Hippodrome: a new 300 seat venue for performance, immersive, and new media,” Fernando told City Council, “not to mention transforming our outdoor portico into a concert and film venue.”

The plan also calls for an archives vault and library, an education center for workforce training and entrepreneurship, and the creation of the Wilde Cat Club: an art deco listening room.

Fernando says the renovation will also bring a studio and rehearsal spaces, a recording studio, a scenic lab, and technical upgrades to each theater, including new seating and restored decorative painting. There are also plans to redesign the hall’s Chestnut Street façade and reestablish the historic Third Street entrance.

He is also planning an expansion of guest amenities, as well as a lobby redesign, accessibility features, larger restrooms, a coffee shop, a martini bar.

Fernando says work has already kicked off for the project with a $30,000 restoration of the decorative historic painting in the Main Stage. Work is continuing when between productions and rehearsals, so Thalian does not anticipate shutting the space down for this work.

Major construction begins in late summer 2026, and all the work is expected to be completed by early 2028.

Since opening in 1858, the Thalian Hall building has had the unusual distinction of serving as both the area’s political and cultural center. It was built at a time when Wilmington was the largest city in the state.

The City’s chambers have been in Thalian Hall since 1990.

“I’ve always said that we’ve got theater in the back and theater in the front” Mayor Bill Saffo noted, adding wryly about politics: “Sometimes the theater in the front is better than the theater in the back.”