Local News: Renovating Downtown Bryan

Doing Up Downtown Bryan
By Cassie Smith

From the Bryan-College Station Eagle

The crown on the Queen Theater is coming back to life with a light and the ability to rotate. A block away, a gallery with up to $50 million worth of art is moving in.
These noticeable changes for downtown Bryan are long overdue, according to officials behind the alterations and additions.

The Bryan City Council recently approved grants to go toward restoring parts of the Queen and the Wimberly Building, both of which have been vacant for years.

The Downtown Large Facade Rehabilitation and Preservation Grant Program will provide up to $100,000 for improvements to the Main Street side of the Wimberly, which is near the Subway on Main Street and now will house the gallery. Up to $100,000 in renovations will help improve the exterior of the Queen.

The recipient of the grants, Astin Redevelopment, will spend plenty more than that sprucing up both sites, though the Queen still won't reopen any time soon.

Mayor Pro Tem Jason Bienski said the grants had been a positive economic tool to help motivate business owners to make renovations.

Texas A&M's Forsyth Gallery will be housed in the Wimberly Building at 110 N. Main St. for the next three years, while the university's Memorial Student Center is undergoing major renovations.

"That will be a big tourist attraction and boon to downtown Bryan," Bienski said. "We're glad to have that here as opposed to it being shuttered for the next three years as they do renovations to the MSC."

Bienski said the renovations might provide the opportunity to bring in another art gallery if the Forsyth leaves once the MSC is ready.

Bryan Director of Economic Development Dennis Goehring said the multimillion-dollar gallery is a welcome addition that can only benefit the area.

"The thought occurred to all of us — what an opportunity to bring a $40 million to $50 million art gallery to downtown Bryan and have the opportunity to display that to the general public because the general public really doesn't have an opportunity to get out to the MSC that much and even students don't really see it," Goehring said. "But here's an opportunity to give it some publicity and excitement and show it off."

Randall Spradley, executive vice president of Fibertown which owns Astin Redevelopment, said the gallery would move in Tuesday. Nine-foot-tall glass doors have replaced the shorter doors to the building's entrance, while steel-reinforced walls have been installed in the basement with "more cameras than you can imagine" to store the artwork not hanging on the walls, Spradley said. The building will be divided into north and south galleries, with rooms for offices on both floors.

"Our real objective is for people that come in here to say this is a gallery worthy of the collection," Spradley said.

Down the street, the future of the old movie theater near the LaSalle Hotel on South Main Street remains uncertain except for one aspect: It will remain a theater.

Improvements to the Queen include: $40,000 for roof repairs; $25,000 for Bryan Avenue facade improvements; $35,000 for Main Street facade improvements; and $95,000 for marquee, canopy and crown renovations. Another $25,000 will go toward other outside changes to the building.

"We view it as an opportunity for a mural or something that communicates with the public," Spradley said.

The three-story brick-and-stucco building built in 1939 has a large sheet-metal crown that once rotated on top of the theater.

"We all know what the Queen looks like. It's been kind of a sore subject for all of us for a long time," Goehring said. "There has not been a real economic reason because the right thing has not come along. As a result, nothing happens."

Several offers from people wanting to buy or lease the property have come and gone over the years, Spradley said. But Astin has two requirements for new ownership: It must remain a theater, and the new owner must have successfully operated one in the past.

"What we don't want to see happen is to have someone open it and close it within two years," Spradley said.

Work on the Wimberly, built in 1964, is scheduled to be done by July 31, while the rehabilitation to the Queen may take until next June.

Spradley said the Queen has been used as a storage facility, but leaks in the roof have become severe enough that everything had to be removed.

"The real trick to the Queen isn't the cost of the redevelopment; the trick is to successfully operate it as a theater," Spradley said.

Published on Sunday, July 19, 2009