Theaters face hurdles to reopening

In the age of the megaplex and DVD rentals, Rhode Island’s grand movie palaces and vaudeville halls dating to the 1920s face uncertain futures in their bids to find second acts.
Some, like the old Leroy Theater in Pawtucket, had a date with the wrecking ball and are long gone, replaced by parking lots, fast-food outlets and pharmacies. Others, with the Providence Performing Arts Center as the most notable example, have found new and surprisingly lucrative life as successful performing arts centers.
And yet others, such as the Greenwich Odeum in East Greenwich and the Columbus Theatre on Broadway in Providence, are dark and shuttered, awaiting an infusion of funds to bring the now-run-down, drafty structures up to the exacting, technical standards of modern building and fire codes.
In East Greenwich, a board made up of local citizens is working to raise funds so the Greenwich Odeum can be reopened after a four-year hiatus, while owners of the Columbus Theatre on the West Side of Providence continue to work on repairs required after the city shut it down two years ago for code violations.
Frank Prosnitz, spokesman for the group working on the Odeum, said he is certain the former movie palace with 410 seats, built in 1926 as a vaudeville house, will reopen as a performance center. “We don’t have any questions about being able to do that,” he said.
From 1994 to 2007, when it was last open, the Odeum did exceptionally well, Prosnitz said, forging a reputation as a place where “virtual legends” and jazz greats performed.
“The reason this makes sense to do is because the Odeum was so successful for 13 years, when we had hundreds if not thousands of performances there,” he said. “The theater brought in all sorts of people to East Greenwich, people from New Hampshire to Connecticut.”
Local entertainment was intended for families, while theatergoers “loved the intimacy” of such a small place. If opened again, the Odeum would offer the same fare as it did before – “a wide variety of types of performances would be available to the community,” Prosnitz said, “all geared to the family.”
Beyond the rather esoteric notion that a theater is the soul of a civilization, Prosnitz pointed out the restoration of the Odeum would boost local restaurants and coffee shops. And when neighboring businesses flourish, new jobs result. He held out the hope that a restored Odeum would eventually see jobs indirectly created in East Greenwich and the nearby communities of Warwick and North Kingstown.
The biggest hurdle that Odeum backers face is replacement of theater seats, which do not meet the stringent state fire code as revised in 2008 after the tragic Station nightclub fire in 2003.
Seat coverings must be replaced by fire-retardant material at a cost Prosnitz estimated at $60,000. After seeking bids, he said, the Odeum board chose a Wisconsin company to remove the seats, re-cover and reinstall them.
To pay for it, seats sponsorships are for sale for $150 per seat. Individuals, families or companies can have their names permanently associated with the theater’s revival, Prosnitz noted, because a name plate identifying the donor would be attached to each seat sold. The stage curtain also will be replaced with fire-retardant material.
Several fundraising events this year, including the sale of T-shirts, have netted the Odeum board about $20,000 and the group has applied for a Champlin Foundations grant to help pay for renovation work. Prosnitz estimated that the work to render the theater in compliance with the state fire code will cost about $150,000 alone. Theater supporters are also readying a membership campaign, as well as a fundraising effort aimed at corporations.
If the Champlin grant is won and all goes according to plan, the Odeum could be open again as soon as the first quarter of 2012, Prosnitz said.
A sprinkler system must be installed in the boiler room, Prosnitz said. The theater is equipped with a fire-alarm system that meets code, said Thomas B. Coffey Jr., executive director of the R.I. Fire Safety Code Board of Appeal and Review.
The Columbus, closed for a number of building- and fire-code violations in August 2009, remains a work in progress.
Owner Jon Berberian told Providence Business News recently that he has every intention of reopening the theater and work continues to render it code-compliant. He has declined to put a figure on the cost of renovations, but has said cost of the fire upgrades alone would be more than $100,000. Coffey said Columbus representatives appeared before the rehabilitation board last November and the case remains open. He said the board granted the theater “some relief” from fire-code requirements, but the city building inspector has yet to complete his review.
“We try our best to work with the various groups,” he said, noting that the renovated 1926 Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket won fire-code compliance in several steps by, for instance, holding events to raise money in a small, limited part of the theater and then using those funds to bring the entire building into compliance.
Built with 1,492 seats, the Columbus later was split into two sections: seating 841 in the main theater and another 149 in a second, smaller auditorium. Berberian noted that the Providence Preservation Society named the Columbus one of the most-endangered historic sites in Greater Providence.
Built in 1926 by Oresto di Sais, one of Providence’s first Italo-American architects, the Columbus from the late 1920s into the early 1960s was known as the Uptown Theatre and was a focal point for Italian stage plays, movies and events. In the late 1960s, the theater rivaled the Avon Cinema on Thayer Street for art movies, but later devolved into showing adult films just to keep the doors open.
In recent years, according to the preservation society, the Columbus gained “newfound respect and appreciation” for showing independent films and housing the Rhode Island International Film Festival from 2000 to 2009. The Columbus was purchased in 1962 by Berberian’s father for Jon and his wife Betty, at the time both opera singers with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Other sites on the Providence Preservation Society’s 2011 Ten Most Endangered Properties list include two other 1920s movie palaces: The 1921 Bomes Theatre on Broadway in East Providence and the 1925 Castle Theatre on Chalkstone Avenue in Providence, both vacant.
Saving such old-time movie palaces is essential because of the distinctive character unique to each and the old-world architecture they exemplify, according to Paul Wackrow, coordinator of advocacy and education for the Providence Preservation Society.
“You don’t find that level of architectural integrity … in any [other] public buildings you come across today,“ he said. &#8226