Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion to be dedicated on June 20, 2018

Kiwanis Pavilion Now A Reality

The Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion in Firemen’s Park will be dedicated on June 20, 2018. But already a concert by AWE is happening tonight, June 13, 2018, even before the dedication. James Barnes, retired Germantown High School Band Director, held the concert at the site of the GFPAP Wednesday evening. 

The dream of building a “band shell” in the park has evolved into a beautiful modern pavilion structure as Germantown Kiwanis proudly has announced the dedication on June 20, 2018. It has been at least six years in the making. And it concludes a four-year funding drive put on by the Germantown Kiwanis Club to pay for the elegant modern steel and concrete structure. The Kiwanis Club mission was to design a low maintenance performing pavillion in Firemen’s Park to donate to the Village of Germantown for use by the Parks Department. 

Keller Builders set footings for the Kiwanis project in January. Then International Concrete Products panels were set in place during February. Then Keller oversaw the installation of steel trusses for the roof panels. All of this confirmed that the project which was started in 2009 is finally seeing a successful completion. 

John Krause and James Barnes, members of the Germantown Kiwanis are spearheading the committee for the Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion. Krause, the committee chairman and chief proponent of the project, had secured an important source of private funding through the Gehl family who founded Gehl Foods, Germantown’s long standing commercial base business. With the Gehl family in support of the effort, other community minded businesses and individuals have stepped forward to provide the additional funding for the $400,000-plus project.

Barnes, a music instructor at Germantown High School, has established a Go Fund Me account to accept donations to finish the Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion. You can follow the progress by viewing the total shown on the publicly viewable Go Fund Me page.

Krause told the Kiwanis Club at their regular Wednesday morning meeting at Aldo’s Pub and Pizzeria that the “Buy A Brick” campaign had sold 320 personalized bricks at a donation of $100 apiece. The additional funding was needed to support final costs and any over run amounts to finish the project. They are on schedule to open the Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion for the summer of 2018. Already performances have been scheduled to have a community grand opening for the pavilion. Donations are welcome.  Just go to  this link: http://www.gofundme.com/y4gsaw. Donations can be made by credit card.

After the structure is completed, the Germantown Parks and Recreation Department will use the facility to hold events in the park for the area groups, i.e., Germantown Community Band, the Germantown High School Band and organizations such as Destination Imagination. It will be available for weddings and private events. It is the hope of the Germantown Kiwanis Club that more events will be created for the pavillion. One idea is to have a Jazz In The Park night at the pavillion for the whole community to enjoy. The Kiwanis event, A Taste of Germantown will also be held near the pavillion in July. 

In March, the project was nearing completion.

Here is what the project looked like in February, 2018.

Interested Germantown residents will find the Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion page to be informative. There are multiple digital .pdf files available there including a brochures for fund raising and information on the construction of the GFPAP. Follow this link to review the page.

Germantown Kiwanis Club Gehl’s Performing Arts Pavilion Rendering