State Theatre rehab set to begin

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: July 23, 2008

The curtain is rising on Act 1 of the State Theatre renovation and expansion project.

In the planning, design and fundraising phases for several years, rehab of the 70-year-old movie house on Main Street is about to get physical.

The State Theatre Foundation comes before the Town Architectural Review Board today for approval to begin the estimated $10 million rehab.

“We are getting very close,” said Chris Hamilton, chairman of the foundation’s building committee. “We are actually in negotiations with our contractor and when that is complete it won’t be long” before construction begins, he said.

Hamilton stopped short of saying exactly when that would be, but supposed that demolition of the back of the theater — facing South East Street — would begin sometime later this summer.

“We will probably remove 30 to 35 feet,” Hamilton said.

The demolition phase will be “very dramatic,” he added, in that “it will saw cut the entire building — 30-some-feet-tall —using a big excavator to tear it down, and we’ll be left with a building open at the end.”

A new stage house with dressing rooms and wardrobe closets will be built in its place along with a new loading dock and a six-story fly tower.

The five-member ARB reviews all applications to erect, reconstruct, alter or raze any structure in the town’s historic district, criteria that certainly applies to the art deco building, opened in 1938 as a Pitts Theater — one of 30 movie houses built by State Senator Benjamin Pitts.

In May, Culpeper’s State Theatre — renamed in 1973 — earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

When it reopens as a live arts center/movie theater in 2009, it will be one of only three original Pitts theaters still in use as such.

After sitting vacant and in disrepair for some 15 years, the old theater is finally making a comeback. Following Wednesday’s ARB review, the project still needs the necessary zoning and building permits.

The first sign that construction is beginning will be the erection of a chain-link fence around the entire, multi-street project, said Hamilton.

Replacing the old marquee, which came down in November and is being restored in Ohio, will be one of the final touches of the estimated 16-month project, he said. The building’s original stucco façade, like the marquee, will mirror its 1938 appearance.

Hamilton, who also serves on the town’s ARB, will not participate in Wednesday’s review.

The new State Theatre will be more than double the size of the 11,000-square-foot original one.

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or

Want to go?

The Architectural Review Board will issue a certificate of finding for the State Theatre renovation project at its meeting tonight at 5 in Town Hall.