CLEVELAND, Ohio - Backstage at the current location of the historic Cleveland Agora stands a brick wall festooned with signatures and drawings of the artists and band members who have played the venue.

The wall is a historic feature in its own right, adding a special panache to the greenroom and dressing room area where bands from Skillet to GWAR, from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to the Foo Fighters, have waited to go onstage.

The Agora Lobby before renovations.

Agora Lobby after renovations.

The wall is also about the only reminder left of the rickety, raunchy old Agora, thanks to more than $3 million in renovations done by new owner AEG Presents.

The grand unveiling of the project is set for Thursday, July 19. However, an early tour of the place, where last-minute punch-list items were still being handled, showed the extent of the work orchestrated by AEG Presents and overseen by Justin Miller, who runs the company's Royal Oak Music Theater outside Detroit and served as project manager for the renovations here.

Gone are the torn and stained seats that may or may not have been left over from the building's origin as the Metropolitan Theater, its name when it debuted in 1913. Gone is the "aroma" - a polite word for "stink" -- of 105 years of movies, theater and unhinged rock 'n' roll. Gone is the sense that you needed to shower AFTER a night at the Agora, not before.

"Everything was touched,'' said Shawn Trell, chief operating officer for AEG Presents, in a call to his Los Angeles office. "We did the theater from top to bottom.''

Agora Theater before renovations.

Agora Theater after renovations.

And yet, still somehow present is the character and mystique the late Hank LoConti Sr. instilled in the place. Even with its blemishes, the Agora was a magical place. In a lot of ways, it WAS rock 'n' roll.

"I think Hank would be pleased,'' said Chris Zitterbart, who runs the place for AEG and took over management of it from LoConti before the beloved concert promoter's death almost exactly four years ago.

AEG Presents got involved with the Agora in 2017.

"We actually looked at it over a period of eight years,'' said Trell, whose company is behind only Live Nation in its scope as a concert promoter. "From time to time, it would resurface as a possibility.

Agora marquee before renovations.

Agora marquee after renovations.

"We knew it needed a good bit of work, but it just didn't work out,'' he said. "Eventually, it changed hands and ended up falling to Chris Zitterbart, and we circled back with Chris.''

The purchase gave AEG Presents a true inroad into the Cleveland market, where it had enjoyed success in staging some of the area's bigger concerts, including this week's Taylor Swift show at Cleveland Browns FirstEnergy Stadium.

Once the decision was made to come into the market, AEG Presents had to decide how to proceed with the renovations. Little things were done in the beginning, then the entire operation was shut down in January and February for the work to be done in earnest, said Miller.

"There were some code things,'' said Trell. "There were fire safety things, and those were the priorities. We knew there was a pretty significant spend on things you couldn't see - the roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing.''

Main floor ladies room before renovations.

Main floor ladies room after renovations.

Yes, an HVAC. That means that for the first time in its 105-year history, the building has air conditioning. That includes special units on each side of the redone stage, which features a special flooring in place of boards through which you once could see the Agora basement.

That stage is massive - it seems larger than ever before, but that could be just the cleanliness of the lines, plus the new curtains, lighting rigs, etc. But as big as it is, it still has the intimate feel as you look out into the tiered floor area and up into the pristine balcony, with its 564 plush new seats. The well-lit safety rails - the lights are embedded in the hand-made rails themselves - give the theater an added sense of openness despite the intimacy inherent in a 2,000-capacity venue.

"We had to make sure what we were doing also involved things that would change the aesthetics of the room, whether you're a patron or what an act would see,'' Trell said.

He, Miller and Zitterbart stressed that the reworked Agora now becomes a viable space for any kind of act, from music to comedy, as well as for private functions.

By far the most obvious changes that came to pass after as much as 5,000 man-hours of restoration and repair work are in the front of the building, where there's a true ticket office, and the entryway.

"There was wood paneling stuff that was glued to the floor and walls,'' said Trell. "We didn't know what we were going to find under there.''

What they discovered when that chipped, stained and ugly wood was removed were beautiful 105-year-old tiles made by the Grueby Faience Co. in Boston in 1912. Cleveland artisans have spent days on their hands and knees fixing, finishing and protecting the tiles.

"We didn't want to polish the character out of it,'' said Miller, explaining why AEG Presents chose to fix and update certain things - like the new polished concrete floors in the theater and ballroom, the fancy fixtures and perfect stalls in the now-pristine bathrooms and the multiple upscale bars and point-of-sale systems spread throughout the facility - and yet retain and restore things like the French matte-style tiles.

The sound system, too, has been upgraded, as has the lighting system, which should help make the Agora once again a jewel in Cleveland's burgeoning concert scene.

Then, too, the renovation also involved reworking the load-in and load-out area for bands, making it easier for roadies and stage hands to set up the shows. That, said Miller and Zitterbart, will make the Agora an even more desirable place for artists and bands.

Plus, they can still become part of history and sign the wall.