HSNA gathers input on future of theater
By Stephanie Kist
HIGHLAND SQUARE — A world-premiere film kicked off a town hall meeting hosted by the Highland Square Neighborhood Association (HSNA) Jan. 30.
Meant to share and gather more thoughts and ideas regarding the Highland Theater, the meeting began with footage taken during the building of the theater by the Wallace Construction Co. in the late 1930s.
The films had been in the Wallace family and surfaced after it recently came to light there are plans to possibly demolish the theater part of the building. The black-and-white footage was digitally enhanced by Ron Higgins, a media consultant who said he used to do marketing for the theater, and shown to the about 80 people gathered for the meeting.
While men made lean by the Great
Depression climbed over rafters and raised beams into
place, voice-over by grandsons of the construction company’s
owner commented on the novelty of the theater’s
air-conditioning unit, the process for mixing concrete
and other job-site goings-on.
“These guys were awful
glad to get a job,” noted one of the men.
Some members of the Wallace family,
who provided the footage to the HSNA, were present for
the meeting.
“We’ve been so proud
to be able to tell our friends and our family that it
was our fathers that worked on the Highland Theater,”
said Dick Wallace, a grandson of the company owner.
Higgins compared the Depression-era
building of the theater to what the neighborhood is
faced with now, saying saving the theater will take
“hope, vision and a darn lot of hard work.”
The HSNA has been exploring the
possibility of finding a buyer for the theater and operating
it as a nonprofit community performing arts center rather
than it being razed.
Higgins shared many ideas for
refurbishing the theater, stressing that its uses would
have to be diverse.
“For the Highland Theater
to work, it really needs to be a multi-use facility,”
he said.
That would include serving as
a resource for the Portage Path Community Learning Center,
which is slated to be constructed on the footprint of
the current Portage Path School of Technology, located
behind the theater. There has been some speculation
that the demolition of the theater feeds
into plans for the new school.
However, the HSNA fully supports
a new, state-of-the-art Portage Path school.
To make a nonprofit arts center
work will take a community-wide effort, Higgins said.
“We have a lot of talent
right here in Highland Square, and it’s time that
we tap into that talent,” he said.
He went on to say that the theater
would need to be cleaned up and made to be more comfortable,
provide varied entertainment on a dependable schedule
and possibly lose the bar sign.
He noted the irony of the venue,
which boasts a prominent bar, often showing children’s
movies.
He said the theater is worth
saving because it is a symbol of the square.
“Imagine driving down Market
Street and that marquee that we’ve all grown up
with being gone,” he said. “We’d just
become another blip on the way to Montrose, another
strip mall on the way to Montrose.”
The Highland Theater also is
the only theater of a certain size in Akron, Higgins
said. Additionally, it was noted that only three theaters
in Akron — the Linda, the Highland and the Akron
Civic Theatre — have such a large screen.
The HSNA has identified a couple
viable potential buyers
for the theater, but aren’t identifying them yet.
Lisa Bostwick, HSNA president, also still hopes the
theater’s owner, Ted Bare, comes to the table
soon.
“If anybody knows him personally,
if he’s got a mole in the room, tell him we said,
‘Hi, give us a call,’” she said.
Members of the HSNA stressed
the Akron Public Schools is not necessarily the culprit,
and that residents concerned about the possible relationship
between the school construction and the permit taken
out to raze the theater should attend a meeting at Portage
Path School the following evening, at which several
potential plans for the school were expected to be shown.
That meeting occurred after presstime.
Comments were taken from the
audience regarding what they would like to see at the
venue, should the HSNA’s plans pan out. Suggestions
ranged from an artists’ co-op in the lobby to
a series of short films to showing presidential debates
on the big screen to serving as the home venue for a
choral or theater group.
Bostwick said it’s hoped
the multi-use venue would not only attract Highland
Square’s walking traffic, but audiences from all
over Northeast Ohio, too.
On a different note, it also
was announced at the HSNA
meeting that a major suspect in a string of thefts from
autos, some in the Highland Square area, was arrested.
Also, efforts toward a United Neighborhood Block Watch
continue, Bostwick said.
|
