Chicago City Council approves measure allowing for loan to restore Congress Theater
The Congress Theater in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood is one step closer to getting a full renovation.
On Wednesday, the Chicago City Council approved a measure that would let the owner of the venue apply for a federal loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The owners are seeking $25 million to help get the project started.
As outlined by Woodhouse Tiuncci Architects, the plan for the historic theater calls for a full renovation of the lobby and auditorium — as well as the adjacent space.
The owners want to build 16 affordable housing units, add commercial space, and create offices and workspaces for local tenants in the theater building.
The Congress Theater, at 2117-39 N. Milwaukee Ave. and 2117-39 N. Rockwell St., celebrates its centennial this year. It opened as a movie palace in 1926, and served for decades as an entertainment center for its area — with movies, stage shows, and special events, according to the City of Chicago.
The theater was designed by Fridstein & Co., which also developed such local landmarks as the Belden-Stratford Hotel, now an apartment building at 2300 N. Lincoln Park West in Lincoln Park, and the Shoreland Hotel, later a University of Chicago dorm and also now an apartment building at 5454 S. Shore Dr. in Hyde Park. Fridstein & Co. also designed two other theaters — the Harding Theater just northwest of the Congress at 2712 N. Milwaukee Ave., and the Tower Theater at 1510 E. 63rd St. in Woodlawn, both of which were demolished more than 65 years ago.
The Congress Theater building has a mix of architectural styles — including Italian Baroque and the neoclassical Style of the Brothers Adam, according to Cinema Treasures. The theater featured a 2,904-seat auditorium.
The local movie theater chain Lubliner & Trinz was the first owner.
On Sept. 5, 1926, the Congress Theater opened with parades, band concerts, and a bathing beauty contest, according to Cinema Treasures. The first movie shown at the theater was the silent comedy "Rolling Home," Cinema Treasures noted.
The Congress Theater originally also housed a Wurlitzer theater pipe organ with 20 ranks of pipes.
Lubliner & Trinz sold the theater to the Balaban & Katz chain in 1929. It went on functioning as a movie theater for most of the 20th century, eventually changing names to Teatro Azteca and screening Spanish-language films in the 1970s, according to Cinema Treasures.
The name later changed again, this time to the Vicente Fernandez Theatre. By the 1990s, the theater was showing Latin acts and boxing matches, along with the occasional movie, according to Cinema Treasures.
The theater was threatened with demolition for condos in 2000, but was saved and declared a city landmark in 2002, according to Cinema Treasures.
The Congress Theater took off as a concert venue in the mid- to late 2000s — hosting Lauryn Hill, Korn, Nine Inch Nails, Lenny Kravitz, Modest Mouse, The Pogues, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, Devo, Billy Idol, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, Toots & the Maytals, ZZ Top, and Weezer, to name just a few.
The theater also hosted founding rock and roll legends, including Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry — who played his last Chicago concert there on Jan. 1, 2011, a little over six years before his death, and left the crowd shocked when he collapsed onstage.
Buty since 2013, the Congress Theater has been shuttered. A Google Street View image in August 2025 showed the marquee damaged, the front entrance to the theater and all its storefronts and some of the second-story windows boarded up, graffiti on the marquee and all over the structure of the building, and a scaffolding canopy attached to the building over part of the sidewalk.
Owner New Congress LLC hopes to restore the Congress Theater as one of the nation's finest live music venues, the architectural firm said.
