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Thursday, May 9, 2024 |
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City Buys Old Studio Theatre - Plans To Demolish |
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wasteful
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jul 27 2009 Status: Offline Points: 793 |
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Posted: Nov 27 2009 at 10:14am |
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The biggest problem with Middletown is that you keep holding on to the past, you don't look at what it is now and you have no vision of what it could be in the future.
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SupportMiddletown
MUSA Resident Joined: Nov 01 2009 Status: Offline Points: 181 |
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Demolishing the Studio will always be regretted. Hopefully the city wises up by the time they have money to do the Studio destruction next year.
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Vivian Moon
MUSA Council Joined: May 16 2008 Location: Middletown, Ohi Status: Offline Points: 4187 |
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Spider
The Parmomont was the more elaborate of the theaters on the inside. They should never have torn it down. |
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VietVet
MUSA Council Joined: May 15 2008 Status: Offline Points: 7008 |
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I can remember most of the theaters having the balconies roped off. People would have popcorn and candy thrown on them and drinks dumped on them from the kids sitting in those balconies.
I agree Spider- I thought the Paramount was a little better than the Strand or the Colonial also. |
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spiderjohn
Prominent MUSA Citizen Joined: Jul 01 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2749 |
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I always thought that the Paramount was the class of the bunch.
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Bocephus
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 04 2009 Status: Offline Points: 838 |
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swohio75
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 13 2008 Status: Offline Points: 820 |
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Apparently now the Studio isn't coming down this year.
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middie85
Outsider Joined: Dec 29 2007 Status: Offline Points: 7 |
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viper771
MUSA Resident Joined: Mar 16 2009 Location: Middletown Status: Offline Points: 221 |
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They are restoring the old movie theatre that was close to my old home town. http://www.foxfullerton.org/aboutthefox/timeline.html So far they are going a good job restoring it. There were plans on demoing the place, but the city raised funds and bought it. It is too bad that they can't do something like this in Middletown. Fullerton California's downtown is tiny compared to Middletown's. but they have kept it up. It was a cool place to be :) |
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Bocephus
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 04 2009 Status: Offline Points: 838 |
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Oops I did forget that in 1984 I saw one of the Amitville horror movies it wasn't a first run a year or two old at the time but it was just a fun time watching movies at that place. |
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Bocephus
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 04 2009 Status: Offline Points: 838 |
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sportsnut
MUSA Immigrant Joined: May 18 2007 Status: Offline Points: 36 |
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Truer words have never been spoken on this site! |
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Upper90
MUSA Resident Joined: May 27 2009 Status: Offline Points: 73 |
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Entirely possible Bocephus, I would have been the chubby kid with a lot of hair, gigantic tub of popcorn, sno-caps and reece's cups in my paws. Popcorn and sno caps or popcornand Reece's cups go awesome together.
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Vivian Moon
MUSA Council Joined: May 16 2008 Location: Middletown, Ohi Status: Offline Points: 4187 |
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Mike
Yep, I remember that council meeting well.
If they can't fix the vault at the cemetery how are they going to restore the Sorg Mansion? |
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Mike_Presta
MUSA Council Joined: Apr 20 2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3483 |
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“Mulligan said he ... doesn’t believe they necessarily make the return on investment necessary to keep funding them.” …The Middletown Journal, January 30, 2012
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spiderjohn
Prominent MUSA Citizen Joined: Jul 01 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 2749 |
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Good points
I go to many music shows in refurbished theaters(Madison in Newport,Palace in Downtown Dayton, Oakley in Cincy). They have all been re-done semi-successfully, and the Strand/Studio would well play into the area's possible focus on "Arts".
What is the rush, other than a package deal with the property owner?
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swohio75
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 13 2008 Status: Offline Points: 820 |
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Taken from the Butler County Citizens for Historic and Preservation Services, CHAPS, Web site:
http://www.butlerchaps.org/ Middletown Losing Studio Theater A Central Avenue landmark since its construction in 1929, the historic Studio Theater is set for demolition by the City of Middletown. The city has plans to demolish nearly a half block of downtown, including the Studio. The Studio opened in 1929 as the Strand Theater. When it closed in 1959, downtown still had two other theaters, the Colonial on Main and the Paramount on Broad. The Paramount closed in 1963 and was demolished for the construction of the City Center Mall parking garage. The Colonial was located in the Sorg Opera House, making the Studio the last theater downtown originally constructed for motion pictures. In 1964, the Strand reopened as the Studio Theater by Associated Theaters of Cincinnati. At that time, the interior underwent extensive renovations and the marquee was modernized. The Studio operated until 1984 and has been inconsistently occupied since. The destruction of the Studio Theater will be a significant loss for Downtown Middletown. Not only will the city lose an important piece of history and potential, but the Central Avenue streetscape will be marked by another hole. While CHAPS acknowledges the economic limitations of a restoration project by the city, there does not exist a pressing necessity to demolish the structure at this time. Reclaiming the theater would offer a wonderful compliment to the city's plans to revitalize through the arts. In other cities the size of Middletown, theaters have been restored for local theater groups. In Hamilton, the Civic Theater recently completed the restoration of the Palace Theater by using funds from the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission. |
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Bocephus
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 04 2009 Status: Offline Points: 838 |
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Hey we could have been sitting next to each other as I saw the same movies you have listed here,
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Upper90
MUSA Resident Joined: May 27 2009 Status: Offline Points: 73 |
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Saw some great movies at the Studio in the 70's - Jaws (5 times), Smoky and the Bandit, King Kong, Jeremiah Johnson (significant as the first PG movie I saw) and tons of Disney and other cartoons. I loved how there was always a nice cartoon or something before the movie. I also remember a spooky little covered hallway you had to walk through to get to Central from the back parking lot. Sorg was also cool for movies. I don't understand why an Esquire type theatre would not work downtown.
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lrisner
MUSA Citizen Joined: May 26 2009 Status: Offline Points: 330 |
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I agree Nelson! Before it is all said and done, quite a bit of Middletown may need to be "Greenfielded".
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Nelson R. Self
MUSA Citizen Joined: Oct 03 2009 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
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That's exactly what I'm saying and here's why: 1) In this decade the percentage of owner-occupied houses in Middletown has markedly declined and must be halted;
2) According to City staff there's up to 1,000 residential properties that may warrant demolition;
3) According to City staff there's more than 2,300 residential properties having minor to major housing code violations;
4) Any reputable local real estate professional will tell you that there's still a large number of vacant, foreclosed homes for sale.
5) The intent of the HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was/is to combat the negative impact that residential property foreclosures are having upon many neighborhoods;
6) Homeownership promotion helps to halt the continuing decline in residential property values; and,
7) Homeownership promotion helps to stabilize the declining tax base and assists in marketing Middletown from an economic development standpoint.
Past policies of senior City staff has led to the following:
1) Decreasing percentages of working class homeownership in Ward 2 plus parts of Wards 1 and 4; and,
2) Explosive growth in subsidized housing in our community from 2000 to 2005 has negatively impacted schools, the tax base, resident safety, etc.
Lastly, please consider failed and/or financially wasteful HUD projects such as:
1) the Dollar Homes acquisition/rehabilitation/resale program; and,
2) the Maple Park Subdivision new single-family development.
These are only a few of the mismanaged or ill-conceived boondoggles that our all-knowing senior City staff have given to us.
I'm a registered Ward 3 voter and I proudly submitted my ballot with the name of Joshua E. Laubach marked last week. I hope many other Ward 3 voters will do likewise.
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SupportMiddletown
MUSA Resident Joined: Nov 01 2009 Status: Offline Points: 181 |
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^Are you suggesting the city should not be using NSP funds for commerical demolition?
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Nelson R. Self
MUSA Citizen Joined: Oct 03 2009 Status: Offline Points: 279 |
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It seems that the City of Middletown may have uncovered some unique loophole to use HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) funds for downtown urban renewal rather than RESIDENTIAL FORECLOSURE PREVENTION activities??
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Nelson Self
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swohio75
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 13 2008 Status: Offline Points: 820 |
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Interesting. I took another look at the two new downtown concept plans developed by Woolpert earlier this year. A very close look at Central Avenue near where the Studio building is is shown as green--meaning park/open space.
Perhaps that is their redevelopment idea for this spot.
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swohio75
MUSA Citizen Joined: Jun 13 2008 Status: Offline Points: 820 |
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The original list price of the Studio was $150,000. The last several months of the listing it was $50,000. Owned by the Finkelman family. I can’t believe they gave it up that easily. Unless they had no other choice because the city condemned the property. The city has long been trying to demolish the building next door since it caught on fire several years ago due to safety concerns. My guess is now that the city has control of that property, they were able to cheaply acquire the Studio, and it will be less expensive to bring the buildings down as a pair rather than individually. If you thought downtown looked like a bombed out zone, the demolition of these two structures will leave a big hole in a this part of our downtown area. In the 1970’s the city used federal money to acquire and demolish many decaying structures in the core downtown area ( Point is, we do have a lot of “holes” along downtown where structures were torn down with hopes of redevelopment without any real redevelopment plan in place. I can’t imagine the city having developer and or plan in place for this block once it comes down. As a side note, I also hear the city is very interested in acquiring the old John Ross/Mabley & Carew/ARMCO building at the corner of Central and Broad across from Governor’s Square to tear down and expand Governor’s Square because they are running out of run for events held there. You know this building. It had the black granite storefront in the old mall. It’s the building where the current owners wanted the city to remove that very granite, clean and restore it, and the use it as part of the replacement design of the storefront once the mall was gone at the taxpayer expense. These owners, that moved their traveling nurse company from |
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