The Columbia City Cinema to Reopen?
Nonprofit SEEDArts is hoping to relaunch the darkened movie house.
Posted by: Stephanie Rubesh on Dec 21, 2011 at 12:30PM
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If all goes well, we could be watching The Hobbit: There and Back Again in Columbia City.
There’s still hope for the recently shuttered Columbia City Cinema, thanks to southeast Seattle nonprofit SEEDArts. The art-loving administration just announced plans to revive the much-missed movie house.
Closed since May, the three-screen cinema went under after the city denied owner Paul Doyle’s request for more time to install fire code-mandated sprinklers. (To be fair, the city said it tried to work with Doyle and discussed options over the course of a year.) SEEDArts, which also owns the Rainier Valley Cultural Center and the Columbia City Gallery, has decided to step in, and is currently working with a community advisory board to raise $60,000 for rent on a one-year lease. That will allow them the time and space to conduct a feasibility study and raise $1.1 million to reopen. The study will take about three months to look at community resources, talk to potential donors, and scope out interest levels in a revived community cinema. Should the results come back positive, the campaigning begins.
If everything goes according to plan, the theater could reopen—fully refurbished with a new sprinkler system—as early as September 2013, said art director Jerri Plumridge. They plan to show first- and second-run films, foreign, and independent films. Given the recent successes of the revived Uptown and Neptune theaters, this could be a very good thing for Columbia City.
Want to help make it happen? Donate at seedseattle.org/donate.
Tags: Columbia City, Seattle Film News
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