Ansonia Opera House

The Ansonia Opera House was constructed in the 1870s as a mixed-use performance venue for the City of Ansonia and the surrounding Naugatuck Valley community. It has withstood the passage of time, survived a fire in 1883, and a flood of the Naugatuck River in 1955. The performance hall on the upper floors was closed to the public by the state fire marshal in the 1970s, yet the ground floor on Main Street has been in continuous use since by various tenants. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The intent of our study was four-fold: first, to document the building’s current conditions and needs, second, to determine what interventions are required to restore the performance hall venue to meet current safety and accessibility codes, third, to preserve the building’s unique historic features, and lastly to provide an order of magnitude cost study for the proposed work. Our goal is to restore the Opera House as a focal point that would kickstart a revitalization of Ansonia’s downtown.