City of Detroit takes control of the National Theater

[motz]

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/artic...vival_in_store

Well well well, post your thoughts and opinions. I heard Cheesecake Bistro?

[Detroitnerd]

Yeah, that ought to work fine. Here's the script for that.

1) City or DEGC takes control of building.

2) Building is left unsecured and open to vandals, scrappers and the elements.

3) Citing how badly damaged the property is, and with great regret, George Jackson announces that Posen will be tearing down the structure, on the broke city's dime.

4) MORE PARKING!

[motz]

Yeah, that ought to work fine. Here's the script for that.

1) City or DEGC takes control of building.

2) Building is left unsecured and open to vandals, scrappers and the elements.

3) Citing how badly damaged the property is, and with great regret, George Jackson announces that Posen will be tearing down the structure, on the broke city's dime.

4) MORE PARKING!

As much as every negative part of me wants to say it is inevitable, it seems that the thing to do downtown is redevelop/restore. Unless you Astsonostoposlouspoplous, in which case just tear down the other buildings you own. I take a wait and see approach here.

[Gistok]

The city is just taking the theatre back. It owned it previously, and were the ones that put a new roof on it [[but too late for the ornate plasterwork that has disappeared from the inside). Of course there's no debris... Preservation Wayne volunteers cleaned out the interior debris from the the theatre back in 2000, so that the city could try to market the building. However, the seats were still in the theatre at that point.

The building got a 2005 SuperBowl facade improvement grant, and the Terra cotta facade was cleaned.

The small entrance lobby is completely encased in old Pewabic Pottery tile.

[stasu1213]

I dont trust the city owning anything. The city has poor judgement when it comes to selecting developer to sell buildings to. The city had sold Lafayette Towers to Greg Jackson and he has not done any of the damn renovations he had said that he was going to do. More and more section 8 had moved in

[stinkytofu]

I just have a good feeling on this one. As pessimistic as we all should be in this town regarding development...I think we'll see this back in time.

[WaCoTS]

now they can sell it to pay off their bankruptcy debt, yay

[Gistok]

I can see one of several scenarios with that building...

1) a total restoration to its original looks. This to me is the least likely result. It was never all that opulent [[smaller movie theatres of the 1910 era just weren't). And it is only 1 of 3 surviving venues of Albert Kahn [[the only original movie theatre)... the other 2 being Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, and the [[former) Temple Beth-El that became the Bonstelle Theatre with the addition of a stage by C. Howard Crane. This 800 seat venue has its' plasterwork in much worse shape than even the Detroit United Artists.

2) A rebuild of a new plaster shell much modernized, and turned into a performance space with the original small [[Pewabic Pottery lined) lobby and facade.

3) A total demolition of the auditorium with new rebuild of office and/or retail space behind the facade and lobby.

4) Just keeping the facade with all newly built commercial space behind it, and hopefully salvaging the lobby Pewabic Tile for some reuse.

Options 3 and 4 were once suggested by former Preservation Wayne [[now Preservation Detroit) Executive Director Katheryn Clarkson about 10 years ago... as an alternate option.

Option 3 is very much like what they did with the former Madison Theatre... except that had an office block in front, which the National does not have. Also the National lobby is a very tiny space... that wouldn't even have room for a refreshments counter.

[p69rrh51]

From the American Architect July 1912.

[royce]

What has always bothered me about the last developer is that they left the building [[the lobby specifically) exposed to the elements by never boarding up the arched windows in the front. Was that a planned thing?