Grove Playhouse revival plan due to Fla. Cabinet

Coconut Grove Playhouse
Coconut Grove Playhouse

A Miami-Dade County and Florida International University joint effort to salvage the historic Coconut Grove Playhouse must be submitted as a plan to the Florida Cabinet by October amid several oustanding claims on the property, the Miami Herald reported.

Miami-Dade commissioners approved the proposed deal Tuesday with no debate and only one dissenting vote. It provides for the county and FIU to co-lease the theater from the state for a nominal sum.

The state of Florida took back ownership of the playhouse last year from a nonprofit board that critics say ran it into the ground, according to the Herald.

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One of the claimants is the Aries Group, which had lent the nonprofit playhouse board money under an old deal to reopen the theater, the Herald said.

The joint plan would use $20 million in previously approved bond and bed-tax funds to rebuild the 1927 Mediterranean Revival theater, considered an architectural and cultural landmark. GableStage, a theater company currently housed at the Biltmore Hotel, would take over operations at the playhouse. [Miami Herald]Emily Schmall