State Theatre ready to build

They say they’re getting ready to fix up the historic State Theatre.

But first there are more parking issues to work out. Parking around the State Theatre dominated discussion at Tuesday night’s Culpeper Town Council Planning Committee meeting.

The issue, like many government matters, grew convoluted though the gist of the discussion was that the State Theatre Foundation needs to close the front and middle parking lots at East Stevens and Main streets in order to have enough room to build a massive addition to the former vaudeville movie house.

The matter goes to Town Council at its regular meeting July 12.

State Theatre purchaser Greg Yates, of Culpeper, ultimately will build his private project over a majority of the lot fronting Main Street soon after, per a five-year old agreement with the town.

But according to his attorney Bruce Clark, the nonprofit State Theatre Foundation is ready to build its project now.

Here’s where it gets confusing.

Per the 2006 agreement between Yates and the town, a construction staging area for the State Theatre project was to not exceed more than one-third of the surface area of the parking lot.

But due to ADA and other federal requirements associated with obtaining historic tax credits to fund the project along with plans for a larger lobby and second floor terrace, one-third of the parking lots won’t leave near enough room for construction equipment, etc.

That’s why the STF is asking for an amendment to the agreement and the ability to close the lots. The rear lot on East Stevens would remain open for public use, providing 12 parking spots.

“The entire footprint of the theater will be substantially larger than the original theater,” Clark told the committee Tuesday. “What looks like parking lot will actually be theater. To cut to the chase, we need more room. The State Theatre has a contract, we need to get started.”

According to STF Vice Chairman Chris Hamilton, chairman of the building committee, the theater addition will consume the middle lot on Stevens Street. Yates’ four-story mixed-use building will immediately adjoin to the theater, separated from the Lord Culpeper Hotel by Stevens Street.

According to Clark, the two projects are “on a parallel track.”

“We need to start construction in July. This is it,” Clark said, offering the most definitive timeline for the theater project in a long time.

Town Councilman Ben Philips wondered how closing the front and middle lots would affect nearby businesses.

Town Councilman Jim Risner said it wouldn’t matter in the long run because once Yates starts his project “he gets the whole thing.”

Town Councilman Bobby Ryan said it was not the committee’s intent to impede renovation and expansion of the circa 1938 State Theatre, which has sat out of use and in a declining state since The Finders, a secret society, bought it nearly 20 years ago. He said the committee could hold “an emergency meeting” to resolve the parking issue.

In the end, the committee unanimously recommended that the State Theatre Foundation draft an amendment to the 2005 agreement saying how many public parking spaces it could provide in lieu of the front and middle portions of the Stevens Street lot need as a construction staging area.

Hamilton felt confident they could provide such parking, perhaps in the lot behind the adjoining church, which the Foundation owns.

“It’s not as hard as some people think it is,” Risner said, asking the STF to “be creative” when they present the proposal to council.

As more background, Yates bought the 11,000-square-foot theater in 2004 to save it from demolition. He and his wife later donated it to the STF, of which Yates originally served as chairman.

The plan for the theater is to turn it into a performing arts center, Culpeper’s first.

The town later entered into the agreement with Yates, giving him the Stevens Street parking lot, and he subsequently granted some of it – 38 feet – to the theater project.

The town, in exchange, got the old Blair House on West Street, formerly owned by Yates, as part of its earlier plan to own the entire block behind Regal Theatre and market it to some as yet unspecified entity for redevelopment. A conference center was originally mentioned though it never materialized.