July 2007 Newsletter
Theatre Update
By Craig Scott, Vice Chair
The Merced Theatre Foundation has continued
to make progress on bringing our Theatre
building back to life. For the first time in
over 30 years we have residents living in our
building. How about that?
Here is an update
on all things Merced Theatre :
Phase One Restoration: On May 11th, 2007,
the City held a grand opening ceremony for
the completion of the restoration work on
the Retail Spaces and Second Floor Apartments.
We now have at least four residents
living upstairs. This literally brings life to
the building and we expect all ten apartments
will be rented soon. There have been
inquiries but no retail spaces have yet been
leased out by the City. Hey, quality takes
time. This restoration is a major accomplishment
because the future plan has the
Merced Theatre Foundation managing and
receiving income from the Retail leases and
Apartment rentals. Most old theatre buildings
don't have this source of revenue. It
will serve the Foundation well in future
years.
Tower Complete: Work has been completed
to repair the substantial dry rot found in the
very top balcony framing. The cost ended
up substantially less than the $34,000.00
anticipated to add steel beams, new wood
framing and new waterproofing. All work
on our great Tower above the marquee is
now complete. The Tower is as healthy as it
has ever been, and will now continue to
stand tall for decades to come.
Marquee Restoration: The Foundation paid
for the front columns under the Marquee to
receive new plaster and black ceramic tile
bases. Our volunteer Work Crew then spent
a few Saturdays painting the columns white.
Our new illuminated poster cases have arrived
and will be installed soon. This reallybrings the marquee back to the
1931 look and pretty much
completes the Main Street
frontage. Our special thanks to
the Merced Historical Society
for specifically funding this
work.
Marquee Ceiling Neon: Twelve broken pieces of neon have recently been replaced at the Marquee ceiling. It's not smoking or sparking anymore. We were getting scared to turn the neon lights on in fear of a fire starting. It's a lot brighter under there now.
Digital Projection: The Foundation
is having increasing difficulty
renting movies in 35 mm
film format. Many older films
have only one or two copies
nation-wide and are difficult to
schedule. The quality of the
film is also deteriorating. As
you might expect most movies
are available now in a digital
(DVD) format. We are investigating
installing a digital projector
with supporting electronic
equipment in Theatre Two (our
one functioning theatre). As
with everything we do we are
trying to find the most cost effective
installation possible.
We'll keep you posted as we
learn more.
