Music may return to Olympia Theater

WORCESTER — For 20 years, Patrick Flynn and Jennifer Wright traveled around the region hunting for a venue to host their dream of owning a music theater. They scrutinized mills, storefronts at strip malls and even churches. Nothing fit.

“We were stuck on churches for the longest time, as if we were going to jam a theater into a church,” Mr. Flynn said.

But two years ago, after narrowing their search to places that could seat about 1,000 people, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright found the theater of their dreams just 20 minutes from their Paxton home.

The 129-year-old Olympia Theater, 17-27 Pleasant St., had been vacant for more than a decade. Hiding in plain sight, the oldest standing theater in the city, with its homely, asymmetrical brick façade, did not immediately impress them. When they entered the theater, they had to maneuver around dusty junk from a Main Street pawn shop; then they ascended the stairs into the second-floor main hall and saw the humble stage.

Mr. Flynn remembers feeling awestruck. “This is a theater,” he said.

They have since spent more than $71,000 examining every inch of the venue and the buildings attached to it to determine the amount of work required to bring it to life and fill it with music. Built in 1890, the theater itself will cost them more than $700,000 to purchase from current owner Richard M. Rizzo, who bought it in 2007 for $60,000.

The entire project will total around $3 million, including construction and startup costs, such as staffing, equipment and furniture. So far, they’ve lined up $2.6 million in funding — through loans from a bank, the U.S. Small Business Association and a private investor.

Having pursued all other options inside and outside the city, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright have turned to crowdfunding to raise the final $400,000 they need to secure the funding, close the purchase and sale agreement and begin construction.

This past week, they launched the first phase of their Kickstarter campaign to raise the money. They have to persuade enough people to donate $250,000 toward creating a community theater and restaurant in downtown Worcester. If they do, they’ll start the next phase.

If the Kickstarter fails, they will walk away.

“It bails us back into life,” he said.

Unwrapping the task

Walking carefully through the dimly-lit, ramshackle Olympia Theater, Mr. Flynn lists the many different projects that he and his team of architects, engineers and construction workers will need to complete before welcoming the public in for shows.

They’ll need to address the structural issues with the ceiling in the main hall, ripping it down and building anew. They have to make room for and install an elevator, just one of many additions or tweaks needed around the theater to get it in line with Americans with Disabilities Act standards. They must extend the stage, rebuild stairways and add bathrooms.

And those are just the major tasks they have to complete once they assume ownership of the theater. The entire renovation will likely take four to six months to finish.

Mr. Flynn, who has worked in the construction industry for 30 years, describes the challenges before him with no shred of fear or doubt in his voice. He and Ms. Wright have a 106-page business plan that they’ve leaned on, one they return to every time they feel overwhelmed.

“I've never thought this project was daunting,” Mr. Flynn said. “Even as the structural issues, which were what we were most concerned about, started to mount, I could still see the need for this kind of theater in our area. And I could see that it matches our business plan perfectly.”

Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright hope to transform the 22,000-sqaure-foot theater into a 1,000-seat musical hall and restaurant for touring acts and local musicians alike. The venue, which they will rename the “O'lympia Music Hall & Grill,” will also welcome in craft beer festivals, comedy shows, karaoke nights, yoga sessions and corporate events.

Between the restaurant and theater, they anticipate needing a staff of between 45 and 60 employees.

The theater will have a full liquor license, serving drinks at three 20-foot bars, as well as new sound, projection and lighting equipment. Mr. Flynn plans to decorate the interior with help from local artists. And he wants to display some of Olympia’s past by displaying antique film projectors that still sit in a tiny, humid room at the top of the balcony in the main hall.

Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright will not spend money adding lavish trappings to the theater. For one, the Olympia never had them: The most ornate part of the building is the stenciling on the ceiling, painted in a geometric design, and that will have to go when the new one is put up. They will, however, preserve the mosaic tiles outside the front entrance.

Lothrop’s Opera House

Opened in 1891 as Lothrop’s Opera House, the theater has never been considered ornamental. Back then, opera lovers could buy seats for plays, including a two-act farce called “The Spectre Bridegroom,” in the orchestra for a quarter; balcony seats cost them 20 cents, and tickets to the gallery were 10 cents.

In the 1900s the opera house transitioned to a cinema, first playing movies, including John Wayne westerns, and later showing only X-rated films. The building was shuttered for good in 2006.

In homage to its history, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright want their music hall to carry a “blue collar” vibe. “It’s absolutely a working-man's theater; it’s minimalist,” said Ms. Wright. “Add anything more, and you're putting lipstick on a pig.”

Parking will also be important to the success of their music hall. The building itself does not have any parking spots, save for some space in the back that would be reserved for tour buses and employees. Mr. Flynn hopes to work with the city to arrange it so theater guests get a free parking spot at the Pearl-Elm municipal parking garage next door — now in the middle of an $18 million renovation — with their ticket.

Ms. Wright, who has worked in the restaurant industry for 20 years, most recently as general manager of Brew City Grill & Brew House on Shrewsbury Street, will oversee the theater’s 100-seat restaurant, which will occupy what is now Dubai Restaurant & Lounge at 27 Pleasant St. The kitchen will serve simple, fresh comfort food, she said, and deliver it to concert-goers in the main hall by way of carts.

Much of Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright’s confidence in their plan comes from their belief that the city thirsts for an entertainment venue of this size, and they have a detailed market study to back it up.

According to the study, “there are currently several venues with a capacity of less than 400, and several others with a capacity exceeding 2,000, with nothing in between — an unmet need in the region that presents a profitable opportunity.”

In two meetings with Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright, city officials have acknowledged that void and offered vocal support for the project.

“What they want to do there fills a niche in the city,” said Michael E. Traynor, the city's chief development officer and chief executive officer of the Worcester Redevelopment Authority. “It would be smaller than the Hanover (Theatre for the Performing Arts), smaller than the Palladium.”

Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright have asked the city for help funding the remaining $400,000, but they were told its coffers are stretched too thin. They also said they were turned away by the Worcester Business Development Corp. The WBDC, meanwhile, has been public in its support of a black box theater at the Worcester PopUP building on Franklin Street.

No competition

In April 2016, the WRA included the Olympia Theater in its Downtown Urban Revitalization Plan as a building slated for potential demolition. The year would also mark the first time the theater appeared on Preservation Worcester’s “Most Endangered Structures” list.

While the Olympia can be revived, the report said, challenges such as the uncertainty of the market for a theater of its size and competition from other area venues may deter developers. The report also underscores as negatives the high costs to refurbish the building, deal with its structural issues and bring it into ADA compliance.

Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright both disagree with the report’s findings on the Olympia. “It’s dead-wrong,” Mr. Flynn said.

They’ve taken particular umbrage with the notion that competition would hinder a future theater’s success. And they’re not alone.

“In general, the more we can do to help make downtown a place to come for all different entertainment and culture, the better,” said Troy Siebels, president and CEO of The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts. “I tend to think that there isn’t really competition here. We’re a big enough city where we should be able to support multiple venues."

Mr. Siebels considers a musical hall at the Olympia Theater complementary to the Hanover. “We don’t have a 1,000-seater in Worcester. There’s a definitely a role for that. If this were to fill that role, I don’t see that as competition at all. I see that as a positive.”

Most Endangered Structures list

The WRA’s report on the Olympia does not factor the surge of redevelopment washing over downtown. That energy has put the area’s need for more entertainment venues in the spotlight, said Preservation Worcester Executive Director Deborah Packard.

“With everything that’s happening in downtown Worcester, each project builds on another project,” Ms. Packard said. “I think as things happen there, and as people start living downtown, and there’s more activity downtown, it makes a theater a better option than say when there wasn’t much activity, and there weren’t people clamoring to live in downtown Worcester.”

Ms. Packard has been championing the theater since she added it to her Most Endangered Structures list, shuffling politicians and city officials through guided tours to show off its value. Not only is the theater itself rich in history, she said, the venue falls in a block of buildings — 9 to 49 Pleasant St. — that was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Interest in the theater has grown over the years, Ms. Packard said.

She is impressed by the work Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright have done, but if their project fails, she is hopeful the theater will find another suitor.

“We’re trying to get people to think about it,” Ms. Packard said. “I keep getting calls about it. If this particular plan doesn’t work, we want to keep the project in the public eye.”

Before finding the Olympia Theater, Mr. Flynn and Ms. Wright came close to buying another historic property in Worcester for a music hall, but decided it would not fit their plan. The time spent researching that property provided the clarity they needed, though, and helped them refine their goals.

“That kind of made us realize what it would take to make our 20-year dream come true: the team of people it would take to make it come true — architects, lawyers, insurance agents,” Mr. Flynn said. “It ended up being good that the other building fell through, because it helped us question what our plan had been.”

He and Ms. Wright met about 23 years ago, and their dream was born over their shared love of seeing live music.

“We've been going to see music everywhere our whole lives,” Ms. Wright said. “But the city has fewer and fewer options to see live music.”