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Takoma Theatre.
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Milton McGinty has seen enough dreams die in his 82 years. He’d like just this one to come true: he wants to tear down the Takoma Theatre and put up an apartment building in its place on 4th and Butternut Streets.
He’s locked in a battle with the Historic Preservation Review Board, several ANC 4B Commissioners, and the Takoma Theatre Conservancy. They all want to preserve the theatre, which was built in 1923 as a cinema, designed by the same architect who designed the Uptown Movie Theater and the Atlas Center for the Performing Arts.
Victoria Taylor, who grew up in the neighborhood, remembers going there every Wednesday night, which was when they changed the movies. “I think the theatre should be saved,” she says. “And believe it or not, there are those who would rather go to a show nearby instead of having to go all the way downtown and having to fight for parking.”
But there may not be enough Victoria Taylors. A 2006 appraisal delivered the news that Mr. McGinty has known for a long time: a 500-seat live performance theatre isn’t economically viable in a relatively low-density area like Takoma.
McGinty bought the building in 1983 and expanded the stage to support live performance plays. He says he didn’t buy the building to make money. “I had a social goal in mind,” he says. “It probably sounds silly.” After a lifetime facing racial discrimination, he wanted to write and produce plays exploring the possibilities of relations between people of different races.
“I bought the building foolishly, really,” he says. “I threw caution to the wind, and I didn’t consider location and all the financial issues that could apply.”
A Theater Is Not Economically Viable
Brightwood resident Faraji Whalen, himself a student of real estate development, agrees the location doesn’t work. “As much as a few residents might like to have a theater in the neighborhood, there's not enough residential density to make a theatre work at that location,” he says. “There's also not enough restaurant or retail on that street to make it a viable shopping district that would attract people from outside the neighborhood.”
But the preservationists insist it can be done. “It can’t run on ticket sales alone,” says Loretta Neumann, president of the Takoma Theatre Conservancy, which wants to buy the theater instead of allowing McGinty to turn it into apartments. “All the theaters in Washington, DC are nonprofits.” Indeed, McGinty never tried raising money from arts foundations or getting grants from the city. Neumann thinks with the right financing, the theater “can be the catalyst that revitalizes the whole area.”
That’s a tall order for a building that’s worth negative two million dollars. The lot without the building has been appraised at $3.5 million. With the building, it’s worth $1.5 million. “Preserve the façade and the marquee,” McGinty says. “The rest of the building is a piece of junk.”
The Takoma Theatre Conservancy wants to create a cultural arts and education center in the theater. Broadening from strictly performing arts, they aim to present films, lectures, music, drama, dance, and educational programming for people of all ages. They envision day and night activities every day of the week.
They’re encouraged by the experience of the Takoma Theater Arts Project, which ran the theatre for a few years after McGinty stopped mounting his own productions. (He only put on plays for 11 years, and then for another 11 years he rented the space out to various groups.) Neumann says TTAP’s events, like a Bulgarian jazz performance that sold out, drew people from all over. But since TTAP was only on a month-to-month lease and had no guarantee of a future in the theatre, they couldn’t secure sustained funding.
“There are no theaters in Ward Four,” says ANC 4B Commissioner Faith Wheeler, who wants to see the Takoma Theatre Conservancy purchase the building. “And just a few in Wards Three and Five. We’re bereft of possibilities.” She’s pretty confident the neighborhood would support the programming envisioned. “We’re a pretty artsy area in Takoma,” she says.
The Historic Preservation Review Board rejected McGinty’s petition in 2007 to raze the theatre (preserving the façade and the marquee) and build an office building. It’s unclear whether board members will be more amenable to his current proposal to build a five-story apartment building (with a 100-seat theatre on the ground floor.) They’ll get a chance to vote on it at their October 22 meeting. ANC 4B considered the matter at the end of September but put off any decisions until October 15, when they will meet again. |
