Main Street Theater’s lease on its Rice Village building — which it’s held for 27 years — went month-to-month last year. So the 34-year-old company has announced it wants to buy and renovate the building at 2540 Times Blvd., near Kirby. (The theater also stages productions at a separate facility in Chelsea Market, at 4617 Montrose Blvd.)
This dramatically lit rendering from Studio Red Architects is meant to attract donors to the organization’s $3.5 million capital campaign. It shows what a theater-owned and renovated building might look like shortly before an evening performance — if, say, no one decided to park in front of it.
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Founder and artistic director Rebecca Greene Udden tells the Chronicle‘s Everett Evans that the plan can proceed if the theater can raise about 70 percent of the total by next summer. Construction would start next spring, and the renovated theater would open in 2011.
The renovation would get rid of two pillars in the interior of the 99-seat theater and enlarge the restrooms, lobby, and backstage space. The company’s website reports the new design would allow expansion to 150 seats — “as more parking in the Rice Village becomes available.”
- Main Street Theater launches fundraiser [Houston Chronicle]
- Curtain opens on Main Street’s redesign, funding plans [West University Examiner]
- No Place Like Home
Rendering: Studio Red Architects, via Main Street Theater
Whether or not the shoe fits, a short and on-topic link of which this project type will remind you in the future
It’s a shame that the facade doesn’t use those parking spaces and come closer to the street, or at least make a little plaza out of that space. It’s holding on to this strip center planning that should be ditched for a building like a theater.