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WILLOW SPRINGS – The famed Willowbrook Ballroom may be gone, but an area nonprofit organization is raising funds to keep its storied history alive by rebuilding the dance hall into a community dance and performing arts center.
The Dance of Life Foundation, a Burr Ridge-based nonprofit that was established in 2016, offers therapeutic dance programs to seniors and individuals with special needs, as well as performing arts programs to the community at large.
The original 95-year-old ballroom is currently being demolished after being destroyed by a fire in October 2016.
Michael Micek, founder of the foundation and owner of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Burr Ridge, said the new center will keep the footprint of the original Willowbrook Ballroom, and the original ballroom will be reconstructed to look the same. The front of the new facility also will have many of the original bricks and cornerstones, and pieces of the original chandeliers will be incorporated into the new lighting fixtures.
“The Willowbrook Ballroom is an icon of the western suburbs and an icon in Chicago. Huge band leaders like Count Basie and Glenn Miller have played there. It was truly a dance hall and entertainment center,” he said. “We get letters and emails from people who’ve had generations of family members who’ve held celebrations there. The community was demanding this be rebuilt. It left a huge void in the dance community and in the southwest suburbs.”
The new 50,000-square-foot complex, named the Willowbrook Ballroom Arts, Educational and Cultural Community Center, will include a ballroom, senior center, meeting spaces, and dance and music studios. It also will have an 18,000-square-foot performing arts center with a 750-seat theater and another building that will hold the Fred Astaire studios attached to the community center.
Micek said the Willowbrook Ballroom’s owners, Birute and Gedas Jodwalis, are working with the foundation to make the new center a reality, and that Birute will serve as curator. And like the original ballroom, the new facility will have full catering, and it will host banquets, business meetings and community gatherings.
“We have [Birute and Gedas's] full support. And the community support has been unbelievable. There’s a lot of love for this project,” Micek said. “This will be multi-faceted; it will be a community civic center, will have music studios, dance studios, classes, and can be used by groups who need space to meet.”
Tamara Leonard, owner of Grant Staff, is working with Micek to help raise the funds for the project, which is estimated to cost about $25 million. Almost $2 million already has been raised.
She said they're looking for help from foundations and grants.
“This will create jobs and provide revenue to the surrounding cities," Leonard said. "This will be a civic center that revitalizes the entire area. It’s like an answered prayer for this area.”
Micek said he hopes to break ground in late fall, after the demolition of the original building is complete, which should take between three and four months. He said he’s hoping it will be open by late 2018 or early 2019.
“The Willowbrook Ballroom touched a lot of people. About 10 million people have walked through its doors,” he said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We’re rebuilding this iconic thing into something bigger and better.”
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Know more
For information about the new Willowbrook Ballroom Arts, Educational and Cultural Community Center or the Dance of Life Foundation, visit the "Willowbrook Ballroom Restoration-Project" page on Facebook or danceoflifefoundation.com.