Bloggin’ on the Edge

Posted by Scott Spielman at 10:51 AM | Comments

I got a call yesterday that surprised me.

It was from a man named Don Hirsch, out of Vermont, who read my story about the Historic Wayne Theater online.

Hirsch, who runs the Hirsch Design Studio, specializes in the historic restoration and adaptive re-use of old theaters and said he wanted to get involved. He had a couple of ideas off the top of his head that might make for successful grant applications. He said he’s worked with several other theaters that were in such sad shape that they were on dangerous building lists, themselves.

I passed along a few numbers, cautioned him on the position of the city and wished him good luck. Maybe this last ditched effort will bear fruit.

I hope so. The city has sent a mixed message on this. First of all, they’ve granted the folks in charge with the theater all the time in the world. They’ve tried to come up with ways to reduce the costs to bring it to code compliance.

They have said the intent of the dangerous buildings ordinance is not to demolish buildings, but to get landlords to fix them up. Demolition is the final step, to be avoided if possible.

Now they say that if they don’t tear down this building, they’ll face credibility issues in enforcing the ordinance going forward. You could probably make that argument.

You might also make the argument that if they do tear it down, they’ll face credibility issues regarding their push for downtown revitalization. There seems to be a general agreement from people in this field that revitalized theaters can be an anchor to a thriving downtown. I’ve talked to several.

The city will vote on whether to accept the deed or not on Tuesday. That’s pretty much a no-brainer. They have to take it. It’s what comes after that that I’m concerned about.

There’s two ways the city can wipe out the history here. They can go ahead and demolish the building, dig out the basement and leave another muddy lot. Or they can take control of the theater project, eliminate the shadow of the well-meaning but unsavvy volunteers that have tried to fix it for 20 years, and make a major investment.

I still think that’s the better way to go.

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