We Would Like to Thank Our Sponsors

Karen

JillVigil

Margaret & Rick Sorrells

Dr. Kamilia S. Smith, MD

Magnolia OB/GYN

Table Hosts aters in Dallas have managed to find a sustainable operation. The Texas Theatre in Oak Cli operates as both a movie theater and event venue. Also in Oak Cli , the longabandoned Kessler Theater has been operating as a concert venue since 2009.

Alston and other preservationists point to these theaters as the ideal modern re-use of a historical theater. But reality, as it tends to be, is more complicated.

In East Dallas, Mike Schoder bought the historic Granada Theater on Greenville Avenue 10 years ago and is responsible for the success behind its current operation as a concert venue. Although he thinks it’s a shame to see another historic theater bite the dust, he says running a 1930s, singlescreen theater tucked away in the middle of a neighborhood is as hard as it sounds.

“It takes so much e ort to have something like the Granada or the Lakewood and make it profitable,” he says. “It’s just nonstop. There’s a lot of competition in the market.”

Dallas has “as many music venues as it can support,” in his opinion. Plus, “trying to pack it out and get 700 people, where do you park them all?” he questions. “It’s a tough little area there.”

Converting it back to a movie theater would be just as tough, if not tougher, says Barak Epstein with the Texas Theatre. The only way the Texas stays afloat is by also booking concerts, comedy and live performances, and renting out the theater for events, he says.

Epstein figures the owners of the Lakewood Theater are probably trying to increase the space’s use.

“Unfortunately, it may mean breaking it up,” Epstein says. “I think ultimately there is a happy medium that could come about if the building owner and the prospective tenants come to a reasonable agreement on a lease that would increase the viability of the theater as a movie theater, venue, bar, etc. — as well as give a boost to the surrounding tenants and the neighborhood.”

A number of retaurants have expressed interest in the theater space, Kinney says, and the owners are talking to two theater groups as well, one of which might purchase the theater.

“If either one commits, we’re going to try to do one of those deals,” he says. “It’s much easier, and we think it’s good for Lakewood.”

The group interested in purchasing might also be interested in historical preservation, he says. But the theater deals may not pan out, and even if they do, the restaurants may be able to o er higher rent, which Kinney says would likely sway the owners.

As unromantic as it sounds, Schoder says, the future of the Lakewood Theater is a numbers game.

“It’s sad, but it’s reality,” he says. “I’m sure the neighborhood would hate to see it go, but it would probably be better used as a couple of restaurants, because it hasn’t been used in so long as much of anything. I’ve probably only seen four shows there since I moved here in ’86, and I’m a show fiend.”

AN ‘OUTSIDE’ PERSPECTIVE

The Lakewood hasn’t operated solely as a movie theater since 1993 — the last time it went dark. It reopened in ’94 as more of an event space as well as a concert venue.

These days, it’s more of a stage theater than a movie theater, but it does show the occasional documentary or classic. Its mainstay monthly bookings are Viva Dallas Burlesque and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Concerts have been few and far between lately, save for the annual holiday performances last month from neighbors Ricki Derek, Kelly Brown and Polyphonic Spree frontman Tim DeLaughter.

Longtime neighbor Gerry Worrall believes the reason the Lakewood has lasted this long

“probably has more to do with management than it has to do with luck. These guys have done a pretty creative job in terms of the different types of uses it has had.”

Worrall, an architect, owns the DienerMills building across the street from the Lakewood Theater at the center of the Lakewood Shopping Center; Worrall’s building once housed the Lakewood Branch Library. The building is named for Paul Diener and Cecil Mills, who bought the building when it was scheduled for destruction in the ’80s.

“There were several buildings in the community on the chopping block or in need of some care, and their desire was to make sure that it remained and that it was useful longterm,” he says of Diener and Mills.

Worrall shares the perspective of his building’s namesakes when it comes to the Lakewood Theater. He saw movies there over the years, and even temporarily attended church there with his grandparents, members of Lakewood Methodist.

He isn’t among those hoping the Lakewood will return to its roots as a movie theater, however.

“It’s a quaint idea, but it’s a thing of the past,” Worrall says.

Nor does Worrall think the neighborhood should stand in the way of progress, so to speak.

“What I would hate to see are enough restrictions put on the site so the owner can’t make a viable business operate there,” he says. “We could end up with a vacant shell there that would be anything but positive for the neighborhood.”

Like most neighbors, Worrall values the character of the theater’s exterior and thinks retaining it is important. But trying to dictate the process of what happens inside may jeopardize the outside, he says.

“If we go down and try to create a bunch of barriers, I think long-term, we’re asking for some trouble,” Worrall says.

Flexibility and opportunity for the owners are what Worrall wants, even though that may well result in the Lakewood dropping “theater” from its name. Worrall’s perspective is di erent from that of Alston, who believes commercial success and preservation success can go hand in hand.

“They’re not incompatible,” Alston says. “If you want to do it, it can be done.”

Where there’s a will there’s a way, in other words. Other than a few lone voices, however, and some flash-in-the-pan social media indignation, there doesn’t appear to be a will not among neighbors, not from the owners and not on the part of the city.

“It’s at an age now, and has gone through enough recycles, that it needs some new capital behind it,” Worrall says of the Lakewood Theater.

“Certainly, there are a variety of possibilities.”

Stay In The Know

share your own memories

STEPHEN KING once advised aspiring writers, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings — even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart — kill your darlings.” What did popular culture’s most prolific horror writer mean by that? That good storytelling often requires nixing superfluous parts, no matter how much the author loves them. Each month when we publish the Advocate magazine, photos and anecdotes we adore are often left scattered about the figurative cutting-room floor. Please allow us to indulge our egocentric little hearts as we share the more fascinating photos and tidbits from 2014 that almost lost their lives in the interest of brevity and limited page space.

Scream For Ice Cream October

While shooting photos of activity on Lowest Greenville for a story on the avenue’s recent development changes, our photographer snapped the photo on the previous page of an ice cream truck that sometimes appears on Lowest Greenville at night. A couple that had just gotten married, shown at left, also happened to be walking by. The ice cream truck, called Mr. Sugar Rush, is owned by Evan Patterson, who graduated in 2007 from Texas Wesleyan University with a business management degree. After opening and closing three stores, he sold his car, plus his washer and dryer, and bought an ice cream truck, he says. For the first couple of years, he didn’t take it very seriously. “This year I tried to involve myself as a food truck,” he says. He put LED lights on the truck and tried to get a spot at The Truck Yard, but it doesn’t allow dessert trucks on its lot (Carnival Barker’s Ice Creams operates out of the window there). While driving around the area, Patterson accidentally learned that some of the people coming out of bars really like ice cream. He began making nightly visits to Lower Greenville and other entertainment-oriented parts of Dallas. “By me getting rejected by Truck Yard, it turned into me becoming the ice cream man of Lowest Greenville, Uptown and Deep Ellum. I became kind of an amenity.”

PHOTO BY DANNY FULGENCIO

Stories behind our favorite, previously unpublished, neighborhood photos