Fillmore Opens Escrow to Buy Quake-Damaged Theater

A quake-ravaged movie theater that entertained generations of Fillmore residents will be spared the wrecking ball, city officials said Thursday.

The city of Fillmore opened escrow Thursday on the 77-year-old cinema in the city’s historic downtown area, agreeing to pay $75,000 for the structure that engineers estimate will require $350,000 to $400,000 in repairs.

The theater’s owners had said they lacked both the money and the energy to restore the bedraggled theater. However, scores of nostalgic residents organized an effort called “Save the Show” and the City Council decided to make the owners an offer with city Redevelopment Agency money.

City Manager Roy Payne said he hopes that a grant from the state historical society will cover 75% or more of the restoration cost. The city will soon begin putting a grant application together, he said.

Payne said the city may decide to retain ownership of the theater once the restoration is complete, or it may turn over the theater’s ownership to a local nonprofit organization, perhaps one formed especially for that purpose.

In any case, Payne and other Fillmore residents have grand plans for the soon-to-be-revamped theater.

This, Payne said, need not be an ordinary cinema, playing merely first-run movies like everyone else in the county.

“It could be like the theater at Disneyland,” he said. “We could be showing theme films around the citrus and railroad industries. We could play classics. We could even have a series on films filmed in Fillmore.”