Metro Atlanta has a well-deserved reputation for embracing its history with a wrecking ball.
Old buildings come down, new ones go up. Natives — like me — clutch our wet hankies to our breasts and fret that the Atlanta we knew is fading away. Everybody else more or less accepts it as the price for living in a dynamic and growing community.
But the historic theater in Dunwoody's Brook Run Park, which may be days away from the destruction, could be an even more unfortunate exception to the trend.
It’s not rapacious developers behind the demolition of the 50-year-old building, but the Dunwoody City Council. And city officials are moving ahead without any plans to rebuild something in the theater’s place.
The old theater, shuttered for two decades and a more recent habitat for vandals and copper thieves, is going away despite members of the city’s arts and cultural community who are begging for more time to save it. Earlier this year, the Brook Run Conservancy and the Dunwoody Preservation Trust paid for a feasibility study that shows the theater can be saved for about $7 million.
Most of the money they propose to raise through donations from foundations and individuals, although some contribution from the city would be required, according to the study.
Randy Lewis, a public relations specialist who volunteered his efforts to save the theater, presented the groups’ findings to the council in July with the conclusion that deep-pocketed foundations contacted by the preservationists had “a high level of interest” in saving the theater.
Nonetheless, the council voted 6-1 to demolish the building. Mayor Denis Shortal cast the lone vote to save it and when the mayor tried to amend the vote to allow more time for the arts community to raise private cash to renovate the theater, his motion died for lack of a second.
Outrage from some, a shrug from city
“There is outrage in this community,” said Danny Ross, president of the Brook Run Conservancy. “Our city doesn’t have any vision. I’m sorry to say that.”
Ross, a venture capitalist and one of the founding fathers of the young city, has been advocating for the rehabilitation of the Brook Run Theater for years. That’s part of the problem, said City Councilman Doug Thompson.
Preservationists in the city have pressured the council to hold back demolishing the building but they haven’t come up with the money to re-open it, Thompson said.
“I’ve been telling them for years that they need to get the money in order,” he said. “Everybody wanted to save the theater but nobody wanted to pay for it.”
Ross, a former Dunwoody councilman himself, said that’s not a fair assessment. A coalition of groups has only been working on a plan to raise money and rehabilitate the building for less than a year, he said.
“They have no plans for that space,” he said of the council. “What’s the hurry?”
Despite nearly 20 years of nothing, the city does seem in a hurry to get rid of the building. Mayor Shortal said the council in March gave the preservationist group three months to come up with a plan and show some progress, “like money on the table.”
“They didn’t think there was enough movement showing the amount of cash required to proceed,” he said of the council “My personal opinion was different, but we live in a democracy.”
Key groups support renovation
The push to demolish the building comes even as some of Dunwoody’s most recognizable and influential people and institutions lined up to support renovation.
Peter Lyons, vice provost of Georgia State University and dean of GSU’s Georgia Perimeter College, wrote a letter saying the university — which has a large film and theater program at its Dunwoody campus — would likely make use of the building for theater performances and other college events.
“In addition, I believe that renovating the theater would enhance the cultural components of life for all of the citizens of Dunwoody, not just students at the college,” he wrote.
The Marcus Foundation, the trust established by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, lent its support in a muscular fashion.
“We have several very important investments in the area, all with the goal of building community and making the area great. In cases of progress, you sometimes choose to abandon buildings and programs that have great potential only later to discover it was a lost asset,” Executive Director Jay Kaiman wrote in a letter of support. “We urge you to not make this one of those examples.”
The preservationists also handed the city council letters from local business owners and the city’s most recognizable arts institutions, including the Stage Door Players theatrical troupe.
“With the larger stage area, the orchestra pit and increased seating capacity, the Stage Door Players could have a place that would afford us the opportunity to bring larger plays to the community, to teach students theater and the importance of ‘presence,’ and a location for the cultural arts community to call home,” wrote Debbie Fuse, president of Stage Door’s board of directors.
City saves original stained glass
The theater building is one of the last vestiges of a state-run hospital and campus for Georgians with severe developmental disabilities known as the Georgia Retardation Center and built in the mid-1960s. The center was closed in 1998, part of a court-ordered move to de-institutionalize people with such physical and mental challenges.
The state deeded the campus to DeKalb County for use as a park, and Dunwoody took it over after it incorporated in 2008. Most of the structures from the Georgia Retardation Center are gone except for the theater.
The theater itself could be renovated to seat 325 or more, according the feasibility study. It includes an orchestra pit and a fly system for lighting and large sets. Ross said there is nothing comparable in Dunwoody and building a similar space would cost several times the price of renovation.
Apart from the theater, the building includes classrooms, a wheelchair basketball court, and a chapel. The chapel had custom stained glass believed to have been donated by the family of President John F. Kennedy. So far, the stained glass is the only thing the city council has voted to save.
Glimmer of hope?
The council appears to believe its made the solid choice, largely from a fiscal vantage point.
“It hurts to tear down the theater, but financially it’s the right decision,” Thompson said.
Ross sees it entirely differently. Dunwoody is turning its back on an asset that has the backing of its volunteer community and some of its most important institutions. All the effort needs is time.
“For the city to be handed that gift and to turn it down doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Asbestos removal at the building is already underway and demolition is likely just days away from now. Shortal, who cast the only vote to save the building, thinks it’s likely too late to stop, but Thompson left a glimmer of hope.
“Every time I met with (the preservationists) I told them, ‘If a check came in tomorrow from an outside person, we’d have us a new theater,’” he said. “That never materialized.”
