FeedsTheater group halts restoration plans
Depending on the outcome of a hearing that took place yesterday, the long project to restore the Historic Wayne Theater is at an end.
The volunteer board of the Historic Wayne Theater voted on Sunday to halt their fundraising efforts and offer the property on Michigan Avenue to the City of Wayne, as they had promised more than a year ago, said Don Nicholson, capital fundraising chairman for the group.
“From the sounds of it, we’re going to be turning it over to the city,” Nicholson said Tuesday afternoon, “unless some miracle happens and we come up with the money before then.”
The Eagle went to press Tuesday night, prior to the city hearing.
Nicholson said the theater board was forced to face the facts on Sunday: They hadn’t come up with enough money to bring the 80-year-old movie house up to code.
“There just wasn’t enough community response for us to keep trying to do it,” he said. “We couldn’t raise enough money.”
The theater has been empty for more than 20 years, and efforts to clean it up and bring it up to code after a fire destroyed several shops in the front have been sporadic. The theater was cited under the dangerous and blighted building ordinance in 2005.
After a series of hearings through that process, the board vowed to be more active in fundraising and offered to put the title to the land in escrow for a year to show they were earnest in their attempts to bring the theater back and expand it into a regional arts center.
Nicholson increased fundraising efforts, putting on a series of concerts throughout the summer and other events, but they were met with lackluster support from the community. After their initial deadline passed in September, the city granted them a one-month extension–and a compromise. They were allowed to bring the building up to a ‘white box’ condition–to bring all the internal violations up to code–and then board it up and come up with a new fundraising plan.
“The city gave us some great opportunities,” Nicholson said. “In the end we just didn’t receive enough money to carry on.”
A last ditch attempt to secure more grant funding fell through, as did additional appeals to the community.
Nicholson said the decision, when it came on Sunday, was a difficult one. Many of those who supported the restoration have worked on it for more than half their lives.
“We ate, slept and did everything we could in the last year to help the theater,” Nicholson said. “It just wasn’t enough.”
What will happen to the theater is now unclear.
The dangerous and blighted building ordinance gives the city the power to order the demolition of the structure, but not to take the property. The theater board has offered the property to the city, but the city doesn’t automatically claim it–that would take action from the Wayne City Council, according to Peter McInerney, community development director for the City of Wayne.
