Supporters strive to save theater
Jessica Humphrey said she is feeling better about the future of the Historic Wayne Theater this week than she did last week.
Last week, she read the official notification from the City of Wayne that cited the long-vacant structure on Michigan Avenue under the Dangerous Building Ordinance. This week, supporters of the theater have started to put a plan together to save the former town jewel.
“It made my heart sink into my bottom, so to speak,” she said of the city letter. “I was pretty down. It was like we were in the 10th round in the boxing ring and about to go down.”
Humphrey is one of several volunteers who have long worked at restoring the prominent structure. She was born and raised in Wayne and said she’s been involved with the preservation effort since she was 13 – and that was 15 years ago.
Those efforts haven’t brought results fast enough, however. The building was cited for a variety of external features that brought it under the purview of the ordinance, which seeks to get landowners to either clean up their properties or have them taken down. The hearing is scheduled for April 19.
Among the things the notice cited were the deteriorating brick, damaged brick throughout the buildings, downspouts that weren’t draining properly, loose window panes, abandoned electrical outlets with open splices visible, uncapped plumbing drains and doors that weren’t water tight or painted, according to Matt Wilkinson, vice-president of the theater board. He said the theater could not be considered a potential health or safety hazard.
“Our walls are 7 feet thick,” he said. “Our building is steel and concrete. It’s not going to fall down. The largest fire in the history of Wayne happened not 10 feet away and (the building) is still here.
“They’re grasping, that’s what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re going on whatever they can grab.”
After receiving the notice recently, Humphrey said she and other members of the Historic Wayne Theatre Board of Directors are getting together as many past volunteers as possible and ramping up fundraising efforts to try to bring the theater back to some sort of life.
“We’re hoping to get as many people as possible,” she said. “I’m hoping it strikes a chord with someone.”
One of those people is Don Nicholson, who was involved with the fundraising efforts shortly after the theater closed 20 years ago. He’s since returned to the project – he met with the board for the first time on Sunday – and brings with him experience with fund-raising for a variety of projects. He said he understands the point of city officials, who merely want to clean up their town.
“It’s a dump. It’s a disaster,” he said of the theater, which is on Michigan Avenue adjacent to another building cited under the dangerous building ordinance. “They’re looking at it like it’s a blight on the community and I would have to agree with them. I want to change that.”
Nicholson, a fundraiser for the Berger’s School for Autistic Children as well as the Western Wayne County Skill Center, said he wants the theater to have a certificate of occupancy – something it hasn’t had in two decades – by March of next year. The first step, he said, is getting a definitive estimate on what it would take to get it up to code. He said he has electricians and plumbers going through the facility next week to get an idea of what that would cost.
“We have the money to do the things the city has asked us to do on the outside, now,” he said. “But we want to do more than that. We want to be able to operate it.”
As far as what the theater would ultimately become, he said the board has tossed around some suggestions. He’d like to see a nice restaurant use some of the space, or a coffee shop with a movie theme, as well as a place for outdoor theater events during community activities like the Wayne Wheelfest. Humphrey, who is involved with the Wayne theater group, envisions a time when the actors could perform there, instead of venues like the Wayne Community Center, the Wayne Senior Activity Center or the State Wayne Theater.
“I’d love to be able to perform there,” she said.
Those kind of plans are for the future, though. Wilkinson said the immediate need is to show that work is being done at the theater that will save it from the wrecking ball, which is an option under the ordinance if all other efforts fail. “I fell in love with this place when I was 18 years old,” he said. “I want it to flourish. So many people have so many good memories of this place.”
Nicholson agreed. He said he wanted to work with the city, not against it.
“The city is just doing its job,” he said. “My job is to show them that things will change. We want to do it within the next year, not the next 20 years.”