Boulder once again will have an art house movie theater, courtesy of the Dairy Center for the Arts and a gift from George B. Boedecker Jr., founder of Niwot-based Crocs Shoes.
Officials with the Dairy Center on Wednesday announced their plans to build a state-of-the-art, single-screen movie theater dedicated to independent and art film in the space that used to house Boulder’s cable access studio.
They hope to break ground on the project this spring and open in time for the holidays in 2010.
“Our mission is to allow everyone in Boulder to experience the arts,” said Richard Harris, executive director of the Dairy Center for the Arts. “When we looked around at what was not provided in the community, film was just screaming out at us. We could lease that space to any number of groups, or we could do something really great for Boulder. We want to do something really great.”
Boulder has not had an art house presence since Landmark Theatres closed its Crossroads Cinema on Pearl Street in 2007. The six-screen theater showed mainstream Hollywood movies as well, but on any given night, several screens were dedicated to independent fare.
Cinemark’s 16-screen Century Boulder at Twenty Ninth Street shows some independent films, but members of Boulder’s film community said a theater that focuses on art house and international films is badly needed.
“It’s really a missing element here,” said Kathy Beeck, director of the Boulder International Film Festival. “We used to have eight theaters here in Boulder. One by one, they all closed down. We’ve been hoping for years that someone would bring it back.”
The Dairy Center for the Arts, located in the former Watts-Hardy Dairy building at 26th and Walnut streets, already houses two black-box theaters with 80 and 100 seats, a 250-seat performance space and multiple galleries.
The center’s theaters have been used for film festival screenings, but Harris said the conditions were far from ideal.
The movie theater, which will seat between 100 and 130 people in stadium seats with wide aisles, will have state-of-the-art sound and digital projection systems, said Richard Polk, chairman of the Dairy Center’s board of directors. He hopes they’ll be able to broadcast from that theater to the center’s other spaces and broadcast performances into the movie theater.
Polk said movie-goers will be able to have a glass of wine or a beer during the movie, as well.
The theater will contract with Emerging Pictures, a digital provider, to show international film festivals, first-run independent movies, documentaries and high-definition productions of concerts, operas and live theater.
That arrangement, though, won’t prevent the Dairy Center from working with any local groups screening movies or putting on film festivals.
Harris said the center’s nonprofit status and below-market rents will make it easier to sustain an independent movie theater than it is for for-profit companies.
Polk said the Dairy Center has received a substantial donation from Boedecker’s foundation. The terms of the gift don’t allow him to disclose how much money Boedecker gave the Dairy Center. He said the arts center received a single donation that will allow the center to build the theater and an endowment that will cover ongoing operating expenses and improve the center’s long-term financial stability.
The center will embark on a multimillion-dollar fundraising campaign to also build a new entrance, facade and lobby enclosed in a transparent glass atrium. The atrium will improve traffic flow and safety and bring the center into compliance with the Americans with Disability Act, according to Harris and Polk. It also will improve the energy efficiency of the historic building.
“It’s oh-so-Boulder in terms of its values,” Polk said.
Polk said the two projects can be staged if necessary so that the theater opens sooner, though there would be efficiencies to doing both at once.
“I would love to be open for the holidays next year,” Harris said.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Erica Meltzer at 303-473-1355 or meltzere@dailycamera.com.
