The 80-year-old Palace Theater, built as Danbury”™s second and more elegant vaudeville house in 1928, will be restored during the next few years, paving the way for creation of a performing arts center in Danbury”™s CityCenter that could be part of a long envisioned renewal for the city”™s downtown.
That renewal could include nearly 700 market-rate condominium units and 100 market-rate apartment units within walking distance of the Palace ”“ all of them aimed at young couples and young professionals who could create a demand for a new array of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. And that, in turn, could result in a broad-based economic renewal for CityCenter that has eluded the downtown during the past few decades. In addition, the Connecticut Film Festival will be headquartered in Danbury, using the restored Palace as its main venue and bringing even more economic vitality to the city.
The 2,000-seat theater was divided into a three-screen theater in the 1970s. It closed in August 1995.
“It”™s in extremely good condition, for the time it was closed,” said its owner, Joe DaSilva of DaSilva Realty in Danbury. DaSilva”™s father bought the theater and it passed into DaSilva”™s hands last May. Since then the building”™s exterior has been cleaned and the two-story lobby cleaned and opened for the city”™s First Night this past New Year”™s Eve.
“I don”™t see the restoration process taking more than a year,” DaSilva said. “Putting the theater together is not that hard of a job. All the pieces are there and intact.”
What may slow things down, he said, is putting grants and other funding and tax credits for theater restoration and historic preservation in place quickly, and creating a 501(c)(3) to run the theater and performing arts center as a nonprofit. “Going through the process for funding and tax credits may be much harder than restoring the theater.”
Performing arts center
The Palace was one of two vaudeville houses on Main Street. Only the stage of the Empress, built a decade or so earlier than the Palace, survives. The cavernous stage has been used to warehouse tires and as a rock concert venue.
The Palace has survived with its rococo interior, ornate proscenium and large stained glass chandelier dominating its ceiling intact. Most of the 80-year-old architectural elements survive, including the original seats in the balcony. Last week DaSilva and a member of an architectural firm did a site analysis of the building, and he is negotiating with two companies for feasibility studies. “We”™re cooking right along here,” he said.
DaSilva plans to open a 475-seat theater for the Connecticut Film Festival in May, and has already spoken with city fire and building inspectors for approvals. “We”™ll do some cleaning and painting for the film festival,” he said. In time, the theater could become the festival”™s home base, he said.
“Long-term plans are to have the theater open as a performing arts center,” he said. “As we speak to people about the theater, we”™re finding a lot of experience right in the area ”“ in Stamford, Ridgefield, Waterbury and Torrington.” Each community has restored an old theater, and DaSilva has spoken with representatives of each “to see how they operate, the talent they bring and their level of experience,” he said. “What still needs to form are the committees, community members from Danbury to guide this along.” DaSilva said that during the past several months, he”™s been taking to members of performing arts groups and organizations and possible corporate sponsors to see what level of volunteerism and funding would be needed to guide and support the center.
“In the next several months restoration should be well underway,” he said, “and I hope to see that board made up of groups in the city. It has to be a community effort. That”™s what will ensure the survival of the theater.”
Other downtown work
DaSilva said that at the same time he”™s restoring the Palace, he”™ll be working on other projects, including “a couple hundred units” of condominiums and apartments “right in the middle of downtown.”
He”™s not ready to say much more than that the projects could be ready to begin the approval process sometime later this summer, and that “if everything was to go right, it will be early 2009 before ground is broken.”
The condominiums would start in the low $300,000s, and one-bedroom apartments would range between $1,000 and $1,250 with two-bedroom units somewhere between $1,400 and $1,750. The multistory buildings will be “urban friendly,” he said.
Those projects would join a planned 586-unit, $100 million, multiyear downtown condominium project by BRT General Corp. of Danbury. Initial plans for the project called for one-and two-bedroom condominiums ranging from $300,000 to the $400,000 range, its developer has said.
