For decades, the 2,000-seat Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium has served as a cultural hub for a range of cultural and community events in Marin County. To boost the structural performance of the building to a level that provides life safety and mitigates risks to occupants in the event of a major earthquake, the facility underwent a $5.6-million seismic retrofit.

The project addressed specific structural and nonstructural seismic deficiencies while also preserving the building’s historic character. Scope of work included strengthening the theater stage roof diaphragm and stage walls, along with bracing the suspended control room and plaster ceilings throughout the building. The team also provided demolition and abatement of hazardous materials, reroofed the stage prior to the start of the rainy season, completed code-required accessibility upgrades and provided aesthetic restorations to preserve the building’s historic legacy.

Degenkolb Engineers designed a platform in the theater seating area that was used as a stage for lifts to hoist materials into existing openings in the 2-in.-thick plaster ceiling without creating new ones. This innovation not only saved money, but also created a long-term solution that the county elected to keep in the building to address worker safety moving forward. Thanks to up-front planning, the project team logged zero lost-time incidents across 17,242 worker hours. Construction was completed under budget and ahead of schedule in March 2024.