The end is nigh for Brookfield’s historic Theater Building and the adjacent home.
Officials accepted a proposal on Monday, Nov. 9, from AG Coyle Development, Inc., for demolition of the two structures that Brookfield purchased between September 2024 and January 2025, marking another step forward in the plan to convert the properties at 3717 and 3723 Grand Blvd. into luxury apartments.
Libby Popovic, Brookfield’s director of community development, said she and her staff hope “at least one of the buildings” will be demolished before the end of the year, depending on the weather.
“We’ll touch base with Alan Coyle [the president of AG Coyle] to get an exact schedule now that this has been completed,” Popovic told the board.
AG Coyle submitted the low bid of $98,000, beating out three other contractors whose bids ranged in price from $171,830 to $206,550 and earning the recommendation of village staff and Hancock Engineering, Brookfield’s contracted engineering firm. The bids were received and opened on Oct. 29.
Due to a qualification included in the price schedule within AG Coyle’s initial bid, which is not permitted under the competitive bidding process Brookfield followed, Village Engineer Dan O’Malley, a project manager at Hancock, said the village had to reject all four bids before approving the contractor’s revised proposal for the same price. Village trustees voted unanimously in support of both steps.
“The only reason that it wasn’t a properly filled out bid is that they had a qualification in their scheduled prices. It’s just not allowed. We can’t accurately interpret it,” O’Malley said. “They are resubmitting a separate proposal for the same price. Nothing materially has changed … Everything else was filled out correctly, but due to that small bid, we couldn’t formally recommend that to be approved.”
Trustee Julie Narimatsu asked how AG Coyle’s bid was so much lower than the other bids Brookfield received. O’Malley said he and other engineers at Hancock were also surprised by the disparity between the low bid of $98,000 and the next lowest bid of $171,830 by Alliance Demolition & Excavation Services, Inc.
“The low bidder provided some consulting early on in the process. I think they were a little bit more aware of the site and what it entailed,” O’Malley said. “As Libby was starting to put this project together, we had asked for some recommendations [from AG Coyle] on things like restoration when we were still looking at preserving some of the Brookfield Theater.”
Brookfield trustees agreed in September 2025 to solicit bids for demolition after they agreed in April 2025 that the two structures would be better razed than rehabbed as the village seeks to redevelop the properties.
The Theater Building sat disused for several years following the death of its owner in 2022. That owner had primarily used it as storage space for vehicles and furniture. Brookfield purchased it on assignment from the next owner, who had inherited it and had no plans to fix up the dilapidated piece of village history, Popovic told the Landmark in September 2024.
The Brookfield Theatre showed movies and live performances from its opening in 1915 until its closure in 1952. About a decade after it opened, it was renamed as the Strand Theatre. In the 70-odd years since its closure as a theater, the building has been used as an office and storage space by its various owners.
That second title is the namesake of the Strand Theater that is set to open on Grand Boulevard at the start of 2027 as a space for local theater and other community programming. The idea for the space was born out of discussions Brookfield held with community members to determine the future of the Theater Building in September 2024, at the first of which John Dumas, the leader of the new Strand Theater efforts, suggested rehabbing it into a community theater like it had been historically.
