News Photo by Crystal Nelson Firefighters with the Alpena Fire Department and the Alpena Township Fire Department work to put out a fire at John A. Lau Saloon Tuesday on North Second Avenue. The facade collapsed later Tuesday afternoon.

ALPENA — Thunder Bay Theatre officials spent much of Wednesday assessing damage that occurred to the theater and figuring out what comes next, after a fire broke out and destroyed the John A. Lau Saloon on Tuesday on North Second Avenue.

The theater was largely unscathed and occupiable, according to Alpena Fire Chief Bill Forbush, except for water and smoke damage that occurred and a flooded basement.

The smoke and water damage was exactly what Artistic Director Lucas Moquin saw when he went into the building on Wednesday, although he said he did not yet know the extent of the damage to the theater.

“We have the adjusters and some other people coming (today) to start the assessments. We’ll know more after the fact,” he said.

Theater Board President Lisa Larkin initially thought board members could walk through the building with the fire department, but didn’t feel comfortable going into the building after seeing photos of the damage.

Larkin said the insurance adjuster will start the paperwork and get things rolling.

Larkin said she is sad about the fire because restaurant owner Jon Benson was really good to the theater. She said the theater would hold its cabarets in the restaurant’s antler room and was sorry the fire occurred the day before the John A. Lau was set to reopen.

While it’s never a good time for something like this to happen, Larkin said she was grateful there were only two occupants, and one guest, living above the theater when the fire broke out. All three of them were able to make it out of their apartments safely, she said.

“I’m just glad that we didn’t have 18 people living up there like we do every summer and we didn’t have productions going on that we had to pause,” she said.

Larkin said the theater will still hold its summer camps for junior high and high school students, although they will have to find a new location to hold those camps.

Theater Board Vice President Anne Gentry, who is also the president of the Alpena Downtown Development Authority, said Tuesday was devastating, not just for the downtown but for the whole community.

Gentry said John A. Lau Saloon was one of the most iconic, historic buildings in the downtown and for members of the community, it was a place that held so many memories. She said it was also incredible the firefighters were able to contain the fire to one building and that the theater was able to be spared.

“Losing one building was hard enough, I cannot not even fathom if the TBT had gone down as well,” she said. “That would have been even more devastating to attempt to rebuild something like that.”

The theater’s lobby had just undergone a $150,000 renovation in 2019, which was supposed to be part of a five-phase project to renovate the building. As part of that renovation, Gentry said they had been talking about fixing some of the apartments upstairs and repairing some of the brick work.

“We had been talking about what that will entail, and this certainly will just be part of that process of what we need to take into consideration of what we need to do,” she said. “Because we are committed to remaining in that building, and repairing it, and making sure that continues to thrive.”

Forbush said they were able to save the building because there was a firewall between the theater and John A. Lau and also because of “an absolutely incredible firefight.”

Forbush said it’s “extraordinary” to save an adjoining 130-year-old building, because it’s something that doesn’t usually happen. He said, typically, the whole block is lost because of the many connections between the sides of each building.

“But in this case, it all worked out and a lot of the credit goes to building construction,” he said. “There is a firewall between the two buildings that is intended to keep the fire on one side or the other. There are always openings in the fire wall…. that makes that more difficult. But in this case the firewall held pretty well.”

Forbush said there were 40 firefighters on scene, who “worked their butts off” to save the theater. He said they realized they couldn’t save the restaurant from the get-go, so firefighters took a defensive posture to keep the fire from spreading to the theater, and set the line in the sand at the firewall and said, “it’s not coming over this.”

“It worked and I credit all 40 of those guys — township guys, Combat Readiness Training Center guys, our guys — they worked very hard to make that happen. I was very happy we were able to do that,” he said.

Moquin said the community has been incredibly supportive.

“We are eternally grateful for that,” Moquin said. “Any time we have been in any kind of trouble, the community has proven they will step up for Thunder Bay Theatre and the people involved. I’m very grateful for that.”

Moquin said anyone wishing to support the theater or make donations can do so on the theater’s website, thunderbaytheatre.com, although there will be other things coming down the pipeline.

Moquin also made a special request.

“I would also encourage people that if they are going to give to Thunder Bay Theatre to please, please, please give to Jon Benson even more so,” he said.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.