Arlington Heights helps pay for Metropolis piano repair

Jack Kehe of Piano4te in Rolling Meadows will sell the village of Arlington Heights a restored Steinway grand piano for the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre and restore the theater’s Baldwin grand piano for a total of $35,961, about half the retail value for the two projects, according to his proposal.

The village will pay $19,000 from the $31,000 budgeted for capital improvements at Metropolis, and the theater has raised the remaining $16,000. The village board approved the plan Monday night without discussion. Money for Metropolis comes from a 0.25 percent tax on restaurants.

The Steinway will substitute on the main stage for the approximately three months the Baldwin is being restored, then will be used for students and smaller recitals, Charlie Beck, Metropolis executive director, said before the meeting.

All the theater’s equipment is owned by the village, said Tom Kuehne, Arlington Heights finance director.

Kehe said in a letter that his great-great-grandfather Charles Taege came from Germany in the 1850s and opened the first hardware store in Arlington Heights. Area residents gathered in that store in 1887 to decide to incorporate as a village, and the village is celebrating the 125th anniversary of that act this year.

Kehe wrote: “Live theatre, whether it be musical or dramatic, is the means for a community to come together to unite under the flow of shared emotions.”