Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A new, refreshed look for Shea's Performing Arts Center and its 710 Theatre on Main Street in the City of Buffalo's Theatre District.
Shea's celebrated Wednesday the completion of a $5 million renovation project that reimagines the 710 Theatre. The project enhances accessibility, expands performance opportunities, and creates dynamic new spaces inviting the community and visitors to experience performing arts in a bold new way.
"This is a stunning new design of a building that's been here a long time," said Shea's president and CEO Brian Higgins on Wednesday. "It mostly operated as a theater, but this is a strategic partnership with MusicalFare. They will come in here in 2026, add 100 net new performances. We're trying to help repopulate Downtown Buffalo, increase pedestrian density, because the restaurants, taverns and shops mostly exist when the theater is active. We want to make the Theatre District a 24-hour, seven day a week, destination."
For president and CEO of Carmina Wood Design, Steve Carmina and his team, he understood Higgins' message of making Shea's and its campus a catalyst for Downtown Buffalo and the city's Theatre District.
"It feeds 42 North, it feeds the other restaurants in the Theatre District, and this is just the beginning. We want people to stay here after the show, we want them to come here before the show. We want them to enjoy the Theatre District, and I think that's the whole vibe," said Carmina on Wednesday. "Brian wants us to be a Broadway vibe, and that's really what led us to it."
Among the notable highlights of the renovations at Shea's 710 Theatre include:
Lounge and cabaret:
A soaring, two-story lounge with floor-to-ceiling glass arches, bar service, and a cabaret stage with full sound and lighting capabilities, and seating up to 100 creates a lively hub with new performance opportunities before and after productions.
Accessibility:
The project introduces fully accessible restrooms, a new sensory room, and the campus' first handicap-accessible multipurpose education space.
New façade:
An upgraded marquee, digital signage , bright new paint and illuminated glass invite the public inside, and reinforce Shea's 710 as a beacon of the Theatre District.
Elevated comfort and experience:
Upgraded restrooms, concessions, box office and coat check, along with energy-efficient building systems that elevate the patron experience.
The project went from conception to completion in just 10 months, which included design in the fall of 2024, followed by a tight six-month construction schedule between March and September. This minimized performance disruptions, and allowed Shea's to roll out the red carpet to patrons for the Buffalo theatre season's Curtain Up celebration.
"I think our strategy from the very beginning was vision and execution, and we want to get these projects done. This was about an eight-month timeline based on the calendar, but our season didn't end until June. They really only had two-and-a-half months to do all of this work, so we emphasized quality," Higgins said. "We never wanted to have the regret, refrain that we should have done this and we should have done that. So we made sure that quality was at the forefront, but execution was critically important. And that's when the professional designers come in, that's when the professional construction managers come in."
And Higgins notes this is just the beginning of transforming Shea's into a mecca for the performing arts and other events in the City of Buffalo.
Recently, the Buffalo Planning Board, as well as the Preservation Board gave their blessing to a $25 million expansion project for Shea's Performing Arts Center that includes a four-story addition that extends the South end of the theater into a vacant lot at 439 Pearl Street. The new space will also include a stairwell, a lobby, a box office and concession lounges.
"We'll start that project in March of next year, completed in the second quarter of 2027," Higgins said.
"We're going to do a glass-enclosed atrium expansion that will include 63 new restroom features, three high speed, large capacity elevators. It will increase the lobby space by 120%. The very simple, straightforward premise like here down the street, is, how do we move our patrons into the space and throughout the space in the most efficient, safest and enjoyable way? That's what Shea's owes this community. That's what Shea's owes its very, very loyal audiences. There's no better performing arts stage in all of New York State than Shea's."
