December 2007 Newsletter
Theatre Update
By Craig Scott, Vice Chair
The Merced Theatre Foundation has been energized by the nearly $2 million grant received from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment. A huge thank you to the City of Merced for its efforts in obtaining this grant.
We now have until August 23, 2008 to raise matching funds to collect this grant. This is our opportunity folks. We can have our Theatre back. But it will take a full community effort...and the full community will be the beneficiary of that effort. Phase One & Two Restoration: Seven of the ten second floor apartments are rented. We continue to wait for our first commercial tenant (five spaces available).
Pigeons continue to plague the neon lighting and letters on the Tower, requiring us to repair them. We don't like pigeons. We Do Demo: We have determined that a prevailing wage laborer costs close to $ 50.00 per hour and that the grant funding from the State will require us to comply with prevailing wage standards when the restoration contract goes out to bid.
For that reason our Work Crew has started demolition work in Movie Theatres #3 & #4 upstairs. We will work on the first and third Saturdays each month through at least April of 2008 and we will save thousands of dollars on the construction contract by doing so. Work includes removing seats and the plywood platforms installed in 1979. We are exposing the original radiating seating decks in the balcony. We would work every week except we need two weeks to recover.
Volunteers are always welcome.
