Signs-Nothing Simple Please

In most things simple is good.  Signs, not so much.  At least if you are trying to recreate something of the vibrant “signscape” that once characterized most downtowns in America.  I once wrote of the traditional signscape as being an amazing visual cacophony…and I meant it as a compliment.

 

Signs, especially neon signs, fell out of favor in the 1960s and were often specifically targeted by well-meaning communities who saw large advertising pieces as crass and more than a little ugly.  Signs, especially early neon signs, were removed, reduced in size, and often replaced with really boring, simply-shaped, internally illuminated cans.  You know, the metal boxes with two translucent panels and a bunch of florescent tubes.  What they lacked in design, they made up for in low cost. 

Today many communities are re-discovering their signs.  Often it starts with painted wall graphics, advertising long-gone businesses or products, but many are now starting to see the value to their economy, and their character, of either preserving those signs that have somehow survived, or encouraging new neon or at least better sign designs.  Many downtowns flat out prohibit internally illuminated cans.  I think that is a good thing. The old signs, often just a few geometric shapes stacked together to create a complex form, are interesting, often historic, and worth keeping and emulating.  Heck, if a business can survive long enough for its SIGN to become old, that's a good thing that should be supported, not discouraged.

Some years ago Medford had us develop some guidelines for sign design (you can find them here).  That document points out that complex shapes, of multiple forms and materials, add visual interest, enhance historic character and so are are strongly encouraged.  Through the MURA Façade Improvement Grants we’ve seen a resurgence in new neon in downtown Medford, adding night-time interest and design.  But even far less expensive signage, what is called “indirectly illuminated” signs, where a few goose-neck bulbs shine on a hanging sign panel, can add significantly to downtown character.  Here are three recent studies for a new coffee shop in downtown… I don’t know what they will eventually pick, but I’m sure it won’t be anything simple.

MURA Facade Program-The Big Finish

About 10 years ago Medford Urban Renewal Agency asked us to help re-design a proposed awning at a new restaurant facing the railroad tracks.  It wasn't much, an industrial style corrugated metal feature that transformed a former loading dock into an outdoor seating area.  But it worked, and from that MURA developed what began as an awning and paint program.  If a property owner wanted to improve their property in that way, the agency would pay 50% of the costs, up to several thousand dollars.

Well, pretty quickly owners found all sorts of other ways that they wished to improve their properties.  MURA expanded and renamed the program as the Facade Improvement Program, up-ing the available, one-time, match to $17.5K.  I, mostly through inertia, stayed on as the designer, working with owners to come up with suitable projects, developing the design, and then helping the contractor during the construction phase.  We did a "landmark" business.  We started bringing neon signs back to downtown, and established a "MURA standard" approach to awnings.  We demolished bad 1960s blocked-in storefronts at bars and returned pedestrian friendly glass and bulkheads, often with tile, to the street.  Over the next 5-6 years something like EIGHTY separate projects took advantage, including the former Joseph Winans Furniture Building, Lawrence's Jewelers, the ACME Hardware Building, The Fluhrer Bakery Building (with its cool painted sign), Mellello's Coffee (on Holly), The Central Fire Hall, Woolworths, Habaneros, the Palm-Goldy Building and many many more.  And people noticed too. Medford's annual historic preservation award almost always goes to a Facade project  and the innovative MURA Facade Program was awarded the John Howland Gold Medal by the National League of Cities several years ago.  The MURA program has served as a model for numerous others, including local examples in both Talent and Phoenix (for whom we are also the designer).

Back in Medford, for a short period,the program went away, as MURA concentrated on other things but the push back from property owners was pretty high.  When MURA was re-organized by the City, they brought it back as the Facade Improvement Grant Program, and expanded it again, this time to include structural upgrade and removing the limit on re-applications and raising the match to $100K per property.  The Holly Theatre and the Sparta Building are probably the best examples of the transformations that occurred under this program.  Then, with the economic downturn, much of the activity elsewhere in downtown Medford slowed and the funding was not being used as quickly as MURA hoped.

As MURA moves into its final phase, the push to identify facade projects was on, before the program goes away in the next fiscal year.  And I am pleased to say that the Medford's business community has responded with vigor.  In the past month we've opened files on a half-dozen or more projects, including some really exciting ones like a car-lot turned tavern/eatery, a restored non-profit, some 2nd floor residential conversions, a brew pub, a coffee shop, and a storefront re-do, several of which will bring new life to buildings that have been vacant for years!  Almost all of these projects have the potential to transform former eyesores (or unnoticed buildings) into something special. 

As it nears the end of its run, the award-winning Medford Urban Renewal Agency Facade Improvement Grants can look back at having touched more than 100 individual properties in downtown.  Not a bad investment and one that MURA should be proud of.  I know that I am.

Medford's Greyhound Portal-Good News!

A while ago I wrote about our efforts to save the Greyhound Portal, a portion of the former Pacific Greyhound bus terminal in downtown Medford Portall.  It was to be restored as a feature in Park Block #2, of the Medford Commons project, surrounding the Lithia Motors HQ. MURA, the Medford Urban Renewal Agency had proposed saving the portal, and then last October changed its mind, setting in motion a long series of complicated public process that involved the Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission, the Arts Commission, MURA and the City Council.  Well, in the end, the MURA Board decided the best thing to do was just go ahead with their original plan.  Earlier this month they voted 7-1 to retract their request for demolition, saving the portal and assuring its restoration.  We are thrilled.

And we aren’t the only ones, apparently.  Last week an anonymous donor stepped forward.  He had secured the original “GREYHOUND” lettering when the depot was shuttered in 2008 and has kept the sign since.  Now that the City  agreed to keep the portal, he donated them back.  We picked the sign up yesterday.

The letters, about 19 feet long and 30” tall, are in excellent condition, considering they are 65 years old and have been sitting on the ground for four years.  No dings, the original mill-finish is in excellent shape under a few coats of easily removable paint.  The chase, at the bottom, originally held two tubes of neon, that would backlight the letters at night.  Even if we can’t find the budget to do that now, we’ll be sure and build the opportunity to get power back to the sign, and do so in the future! 

One (?) Step Backward in Medford

I have avoided writing of the multi-faceted disaster that is surrounding the JPR Foundation projects in Medford because, frankly, I can’t believe the lack of vision of the State Board of Higher Education and keep hoping that saner minds will prevail.  This is beginning to look doubtful.  In short, SOU and the Chancellor’s office, despite having reviewed and approved JPR’s purchase of the Holly (and their acceptance of a local businessman’s generous donation of a second structure to solve their decades-long studio needs) has now launched what appears to be something of a vendetta against JPR, Medford and my eldest brother.  You can read the latest here: MT June 14

It may be a long time before there is any more progress like this at Medford's Holly Theater

 

Basically, SOU and the Chancellor have determined that JPR, despite its nearly 10 years of successful operation of Redding’s Cascade Theatre (a structure that was actually purchased with Higher Education bonds) shouldn’t operate anything other than radio stations and shouldn’t be in the business of renovating theatres (like the Holly) or donated buildings (like the Medford Grocery Warehouse).   That JPR has been doing exactly that, with Higher Ed’s agreement, for some time, hasn’t stopped SOU from terminating JPR’s longtime director, threatening to personally sue the entire JPR Foundation Board of Directors, and undermining the future of the Holly and its potential to help revitalize downtown Medford.

For those of you in southern Oregon, you will not be remiss in thinking this looks like narrow-minded, parochial Ashlanders trying to quash good things in Medford.  From my vantage point I wonder why the Chancellor’s office suddenly became so opposed to JPR’s plans for the Holly and I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to connect the dots to the only entity in southern Oregon that has ever voiced opposition to the Holly Theatre.  Holly Position Statement There seems to be no shortage of shortsightedness in some quarters.

There is, however, vision in southern Oregon. Mayor Gary Wheeler and the City of Medford have been incredibly supportive of the Holly (and so, in truth, has the City of Ashland and most of Ashland and other southern Oregon residents).  Only SOU President Mary Cullinan (who originally congratulated JPR on the Holly and the Jefferson Square project) and the Chancellor’s office (generously) appear to be hell-bent on keeping JPR on campus or at least keep it out of Medford.  Not so generously they appear to be set on wrecking one of our region’s most important, and most successful, cultural institutions.  You have to wonder why.

If this mess is allowed to continue there is, I fear, a very good chance that not only will Medford lose the Holly and the Jefferson Square projects, but that southern Oregon and northern California will lose the quality public radio system that it has come to enjoy and expect.

The Holly, something of a dump before JPR, could remain shuttered for years under SOU

Just two months ago more than 1000 people assembled in downtown Medford and cheered the re-lighting of the Holly's brilliant neon signs and the completion of its beautiful façade renovation. Sometime next week we’ll remove the scaffolding and the truss repairs will be complete, returning occupancy to the Holly auditorium for the first time a decade.  If the Chancellor’s small-minded, short-sighted, unwarranted, and nasty attacks on Medford and the JPR Foundation Board of Directors stand, it will almost certainly be a very long time before anything else good happens at the Holly Theatre.  That would be just one of the serious results of this curious and unfortunate situation.

Progress at the Coos Bay Egyptian!

The Egyptian Theatre, in Coos Bay, is making great progress.  Earlier this week the marketing study, by Herb Stratford of Historic Theater Consultants/Mary Bosch of MarkeTek, was released to the public, identifying a sustainable mix of live performance and a range of films that can fill a niche in the Coos County/South Coast region.  This will enable the theatre to again serve its fans and rebuild back the audience that it lost in March 2011 when the doors were closed following the issuance of a structural report that result in a “dangerous building” designation.

Since then the City, which owns the building, and its partners the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association, have been working hard behind the scenes to craft a new future for this gem of a structure.  In addition to Herb and myself, they have brought in new fund-raising talent in the form of Cascadia Consultants and most critically a soon-to-be finalized contract with an engineering firm that will revisit the structural issues.   A big problem with the first structural report was that it envisioned a fully-rehabilitated building capable of putting on large scale Broadway-style shows, multiple green rooms, all new systems and mechanical improvements, plus a full code upgrade.  That would all be nice, but much of it isn’t necessary or, in light of the marketing study, logical.  Instead the Egyptian is now looking to a phased rehabilitation and the first phase is simply to get the doors back open, put the public back inside this incredible auditorium, let them enjoy the "Mighty Wurlitzer" once again, and re-tool the unfortunate perception that the building is beyond repair.  As a recent article in the local paper reports, that shouldn’t be too expensive to accomplish and we are hoping to have those doors back open by mid-2013. (see the article at http://theworldlink.com/news/local/egyptian-could-open-in-a-year/article_563ddfe0-b667-11e1-b22a-001a4bcf887a.html) 

On other fronts, the City is studying the drainage problem that led to fears of the lobby flooding and the ugly sandbags on the street, a paint and patch façade upgrade that will give give the building a cleaner appearance and correct some damage.  Plus there is a REALLY nifty fund-raising concept floating around that will just have to check back to hear about!  The Egyptian is coming back… count on it.  Well Done Coos Bay!

Cornice Rosettes at the Holly

Work on the Holly Theatre, in Medford, continues, as the paint referred to a few weeks ago, is in the process of being applied, weather permitting.  The lower brick, at the storefronts, has been removed.  HydroStrip, by Devoe Coatings, is a great product…non-caustic, water-soluble and pretty effective (although the painters may have some input on that last point).  No matter how you look at it, it sure beats sandblasting or a total reliance on elbow grease!

 

One interesting discovery has been at the opposite end of the building, the projecting cornice.  This is a fine sheet metal element, highlighted by strong projecting dentils and rosettes.  Preliminary paint analysis indicated that it had only been painted twice, with a yellow-tan above the galvanized surface and then a deep brown.  While it may have been left natural upon the building’s completion in 1930, I’d pretty much determined to repaint it in a yellow-tan, “Danish Pine,” from Miller Paint’s excellent historic colors series.  Early last week the guys were up there doing paint prep and I got an excited call about the rosettes, which turned out to have been far more poly-chromed than we’d realized.  (There is a peril in having only a few photos of the exterior, none of which actually show the parapet).

 

At any rate, after a certain amount of head-scratching, we are, of course, going to replicate the three-color (Green/Blue/Red) design of the rosettes.  Much of this will be hand work, 40 feet up in the air, probably lying on your back.  The painters are joking that it will be like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.  While I’m not sure that is accurate (although the rosettes should be pretty spectacular when they are done), I am pretty sure that I’d best be showing up donuts or something for the painters.

Picking Paint

Back when I got my hands dirty (I worked briefly as a painting contractor), the other tradespeople always joked about their mistakes “don’t worry, the painters will deal with it.”  These days I am often in the business of choosing paint colors for projects, always an interesting exercise if only because it often happens near the end.

In Medford, where I still function as the designer for the Medford Urban Renewal Agency’s Façade Improvement Program, I’ve chosen paint schemes for dozens of buildings over the years.  Sometimes I am accused of being overly consistent (i.e “boring”) and of picking colors from a limited range.  That’s probably true.  Painting a building, particularly a commercial building, requires a certain amount of restraint.  I tend to strike Neon Yellow off the palette without much thought.  Plus, when you are painting a building, a little color goes a long way.  Which isn’t to say everything has to be tan or grey, but hey, bright colors are why they invented accent strips.  So yes, I tend toward various shades of tan, and cream, and brown, and green, with the occasional red, yellow or even orange (and once violet) highlights.  I will admit it, I don’t like blue, at least for buildings.  I just don’t.   And when a client insists on painting their building the wrong color (sea-foam teal, or the proverbial diarrhea brown), I just cringe every time I go past.  But yes, Virginia,  there are even buildings out there with blue trim that I’ve spec’d, sometimes because that was part of the corporate logo, or what the customer wanted, or who knows why.  There is no accounting for taste and after all is IS just paint...it'll wear off and be re-done in ten years anyway.  But blue?  Ick.

Picking colors usually starts with the limited option items; the awnings, the tile, the metal elements (if there are any).  Those products don’t come in a wide range of tones and so you build your palette around the fixed elements first.  PAINT is easy.  Heck, you can bring in Aunt Sally’s favorite vase and match that if you really want too.  Look at those fan books…there is a color that is right for almost every project (and usually more than one).  In fact I think all those colors are exactly why so many people get paralyzed when they have to decide (and why they are so grateful that I just pick the colors for them).  There are too many choices.  Besides, if I pick the colors they can always blame me if they don’t like them!

I don’t always get it right.  Sometimes the building limits my choices or forces a certain decision that I wouldn’t otherwise make.  Mostly, at least to MY eye, the colors come out pretty well and, every once in awhile, at least I think they come out great.

Today I am picking the exterior colors (or, in truth, more of the exterior colors) for the Holly Theatre.  The painter is nibbling at my heels for a decision.  Perhaps the sun will actually break through to make my life a little easier.

Holly Theatre, Entry Tile Design

Awhile back I reported on the “thrill” of discovered ceramic tile in the exterior foyer of Medford’s Holly Theatre.  We found ceramic tiles, buried underneath a thin layer of concrete, that had been hidden by indoor-outdoor carpets (Really, you have to wonder what people were thinking in the 1970s sometimes).

Anyway, as might have been expected, the tile was pretty chewed up and beyond salvage but gave us plenty of information to design something appropriate to replace it with.  The foyer originally had a small outdoor ticket booth, sort of coffin-shaped according to the footprint, and a series of speckled brown and green octagonal field tiles.  

The Holly, operated by a non-profit (the JPR Foundation) needs, in addition to a nifty, historically appropriate, entry way, a mechanism to recognize major donors.  After coming up with a simple design and the materials for the field tiles (the octagons) we used the shape and location of the ticket booth as the inspiration for a donor medallion, to be made of the same tile materials with an etched brass “H”, the building logo, that was taken from the top of the original marquee.

All of this will be water-jet cut to create precision joints that can be easily installed.  The tile is in production now.  It should be installed sometime in late March or early April if all goes according to plan.  There is more tile too, vertical work to protect the sidewalls.  If you are in southern Oregon in early Spring, watch the news for a dedication ceremony and the “Grand Relighting” of the neon sign!

"Wonderful Things"- Coos Bay's Egyptian Theatre

In 1922, as the story goes, Howard Carter stuck his head through a hole in a wall in Egypt and saw “Wonderful Things,” the largely un-looted tomb of Egypt’s now famed boy King Tutankhamen, King Tut.  Carter’s find set off a sudden rage for all things Egyptian, from jewelry and ceramics, to art and even furniture, but is it is Tut’s influence upon architecture, the Egyptian Revival of the 1920s and 1930s, that we are interested in here.  Egyptian Revival found expression in storefronts (like Klamath Falls’ famed Stribling Motors), and funerary structures (like Eugene’s’ famed Hope Abbey Mausoleum) but its most exuberant use, without a doubt, was in the movie palace.

With the advent of motion pictures, theatres had quickly evolved from simple storefronts into what were almost always the most elaborate flights of fancy most communities had ever seen.  Egyptian was the ultimate “Show Starts on the Sidewalk,” as mentioned in an earlier blog.  By the 1920s, with hundreds of new “talky” theatres under construction, virtually every type of stylistic flourish, from Art Deco to Spanish Revival, Hopi, Aztecan, Moroccan, Chinese and every other design vocabulary was eventually the focus of some Main Street showplace.  Architects of varying skills, some of whom even specialized in movie theatre designs, mined and harvested themes for elaborate concepts that would create a vibrant experience to compete with the flickering images of the silver screen and keep the folks coming back again and again.

The great visuals of Egypt were a natural, and “Egyptian Theatres,” cropped up in Seattle, Portland, Boise and Ogden, among others.  Sid Grauman, of Grauman’s Chinese in Los Angeles, also built Grauman’s Egyptian just down the road.  That Egyptian was the recent focus of a $15 million restoration.  But of the 95 Egyptian Revival Theatres identified by the website Cinema Treasures (www.cinematreasures.org), only 29 remain open as of this writing.  Oregon had two.  Portland’s, on Union Street, was demolished sometime after it closed in 1962.  The site is now an equipment lot.  The other, in Coos Bay, survives and was showing movies as recently as February 2011.

The Egyptian, built in 1925, is a gem that occupies a somewhat non-descript mid-block site in the heart of downtown.  But when you open the door and enter the lobby you can appreciate what Howard Carter saw in 1922.  Larger than life statues flank the stairwells leading to the balcony.  Polychrome detail and papyrus-bundle columns highlight the doors and lobby cornice.  And the auditorium?  Well, let’s just say it hasn’t been changed too much since the interior designer, Charles R. Berg (the same designer responsible for the Holly Theatre, in Medford) first sketched out his own version of Egyptian exuberance. 

Even closed, Coos Bay’s Egyptian Theatre has many friends and fans, joined under the umbrella of the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association (ETPA) and the City of Coos Bay Urban Renewal Agency (who purchased the building several years ago).  They are working hard to assure it a future.  Unfortunately the first step in that process, a structural analysis that detailed the building’s condition, was perhaps not as well conceived as it could have been, resulting in the sudden closure of the theatre last March.  The Egyptian Theatre was included in HPLO’s first “Most Endangered List” last year and out of that several grants and renewed dedication to creating a successful future have developed.  At the city’s request I went to Coos Bay a few months ago to review the building and meet the community to give them some ideas of how to proceed.  And that is exactly what we will do...the Egyptian Theatre is clearly a “Wonderful Thing.”  Far too wonderful for Coos Bay, and Oregon, to lose.  Coos Bay's school children agree.

Facades are Improving

Medford’s Façade Improvement Grant Program keeps moving forward and transforming downtown buildings one storefront after another.  These past few weeks I’ve been working on the eastern portion of the Hamlin Building, one of the oldest structures in downtown.  Built in 1888 it was originally a vernacular Italianate form, with exposed red brick, arched windows and central stairwell that divided the façade into two symmetrical bays.  

Fast forward to the 1930s, the second generation of the Hamlin family split the property after a legal dispute and the west half was modernized.  Not to be outdone the Miles family, the heirs that owned the eastern half, covered the old brick with a mixture of stucco and panels in the latest Art Moderne styling in the late 1930s, probably with the assistance of local architect Frank Chamberlain Clark.  Clark’s offices were on the second floor for many years.  

The east half of the building was again remodeled in the 1960s and 1980s and by early October was in need of some TLC.  The heavy metal awning, mounted on what turned out to be panels of Masonite loosely attached to the lower façade, was failing and threatening to collapse.  Once the awning was removed, the Masonite came down, exposing the series of remodelings, and even including a glimpse of the original brick exterior.

We’re working with the owners, a great-grandson of Mr. Hamlin himself, on a new façade treatment that will try to create a more unified, and durable, lower façade, while painting the upper to accentuate its fine detailing.  A new awning, and new signage, will help support the success of the current occupant, a restaurant, or any subsequent tenants.

The façade projects in Medford aren’t always strictly by-the-book preservation in the normal sense, but we certainly take the lessons of preservation and use them to create what are hopefully more attractive members of the streetscape.  The program has been incredibly successful, addressing more than 90 buildings in the past 8 years and winning the James C. Howland Gold Medal from the National League of Cities for excellence in “Urban Enrichment.”

Restoration-A Team Sport (Why Seismic Terror Threatens Buildings)

There is a discussion, on one of the professional historic preservation listservs, that asks the question “Is the Architect the most important person in a restoration?”  The answers, including my own, tend toward “that depends on the architect” with the general consensus being that a good architect is a valuable element of the team, but the wrong architect can ruin a historic building.  I’ve met both of those architects (My architect friends know that long ago I started to characterize architects as being either “trainable” or beyond redemption.  I don’t work with the latter more than once).

But it is another professional member of the team who can often be more critical to the success of a project, if only because they can either make or break it long before the rest of us even get to start thinking about it.  That would be the structural engineer, a position that has risen in importance in Oregon in direct proportion to the rise in concern over seismic activity and the so-called “Big One,” that we are now taught to call the Cascadia Event.

The general public (read building owners and, unfortunately, too many building officials) tend to get really nervous about the structural integrity of “old” structures that don’t meet current building codes.  (We won’t mention that the building you are sitting in right now, unless it was built last month, probably doesn’t meet current building code either).  Well-meaning people tend to think “non-code compliant” and “unsafe” are somehow synonyms.  They aren’t.

So, why am I writing this?  Well, engineer issues are always at the forefront of project planning and, since I have several projects in that phase, I’ve been dealing with engineers.  Good ones are creative, experienced, and flexible.  The opposite, not quite so much.  Whatever I think about architects beyond redemption, I think about the wrong engineers to an exponential degree.  They can kill a project, and they can do so entirely unnecessarily.  Other times (read school districts) public officials use seismic concerns (founded or not) as an excuse for what they really what to do (See the Medford School District and the demolition of both Jackson and Roosevelt elementary schools a few years ago).

The building community, particularly in this poor economy, has a tendency to beat the drum of public safety related to unreinforced masonry buildings.  I don’t think that this entirely self-serving, but I also don’t buy that it’s the crisis it is sometimes made out to be.  You can retrofit most any building fairly economically to help assure that people will get out in the event of an “event” and, of course, any time you work on a building you should take the opportunity to improve its structural capacity.  But the reality is that you can only rarely save the building without incredible, unsupportable, expense.  And that is pretty much a good thing because it is the rare building (historic or otherwise) that really can justify that expense or merits saving.  Historic buildings are cool, no doubt.  But perhaps investing millions into them just to cover your hindquarters from a lawsuit isn’t the best use of capital. 

I was just involved with the planning for a police station, a building you probably want to survive an event, right?  The current, old, wood-frame, building had 1 in 158 probability of collapse during an earthquake.  Moving that use into another, significantly newer and more expensive building, would yield a probably of 1 in 31,600.  Pretty good odds.  But 1 in 158 isn’t all that terrible a starting point. And what NO engineer will ever actually tell you is that there is no such thing as an earthquake proof building.  That city, for considerably less money, will upgrade its existing facility and increase its survival by more than a factor of ten.  Better odds.  An economic study of the cost per life saved from 500 government mandated programs found that seismic upgrade to existing buildings was the single least cost-effective use of dollars.  Not much comfort, of course, if you are injured by a falling building, but perhaps from a policy standpoint those millions and millions of dollars would be better spent improving the safety of our cars and roads.  There is little doubt that it would save more lives.

Given the chance, one of my first recommendations to any client is to be sure they have all the right professionals in place; the architect, the contractor, and the engineer as early in the process as is possible so that each of us can communicate to each other.  It doesn’t always work, but it sure tends to work better than not.

The Holly Theatre, Medford

Several months ago I reported on the announced transformation of Medford’s Holly Theatre into a fully restored performing arts center to be operated by the JPR Foundation, the same folks that run the successful Cascade Theatre in Redding, California.  I see this not only as a great opportunity for a long neglected building, the Frank Clark-designed Holly Theatre, but as a wonderful opportunity for downtown Medford.  A revitalized Holly Theatre will, in tandem with the existing Craterian Theatre, essentially double Medford’s night-time draw, support the growing number of high-quality eateries in downtown and, written broadly, give people another good reason to be in downtown Medford after the end of the business day.

While the media has been quiet, except for the occasional doubting Thomas who still fear that Medford can’t support two theatres (nonsense), the JPR Foundation has not.  Most of the Holly’s interior has been cleaned up, as the previous owner removed things that had been stored there, creating an even more impressive space.  The Holly is, well, HUGE, with a single seating rake that once held more than 1200 seats.  The deep stage is largely empty, the leaking roof of the fly has now been repaired and the lighting is on, so you can appreciate the amazing interior.  JPR has been working on finalizing the application for a MURA Facade Improvement Grant, and expects to start work on recreating the huge 33-foot tall neon sign and the projecting marquee by late Fall.  Planning is underway for the major restoration effort, including new systems, improved building services, and, of course, an entirely accurate restoration and rehabilitation that will return the building to full function.  There are, of course, LOTS of decisions yet to be made, and lots of surprises yet to come, but the Holly is clearly on the road back.  Medford is very very lucky.