W’burg Action Team saved the Lane Theater, but lacks resources to restore it

When you envision the landscape of downtown Williamsburg, chances are that the marquee of the old Lane Theater will be among the first images that come to mind.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Although it has largely sat empty for decades, the Lane Theater is one of the predominant structures on Williamsburg’s Main Street, and has been since it was first built in 1948.

The Williamsburg Action Team, which purchased the building about 20 years ago, largely deserves the credit for saving this iconic structure, which closed in the 1980s.

At some point after its closure, the City of Williamsburg obtained the building, but didn’t do much with it besides putting a new roof on the structure shortly before selling it.

In August 2002, the Williamsburg Action Team purchased the 600-seat Lane Theater from the city for $58,300. In 2007, the group received a $60,000 Renaissance on Main grant to pay off the building’s mortgage.

Aside from restoration of the marquee, the Williamsburg Action Team, which is a non-profit composed entirely of volunteers, has concentrated mainly on preserving the building with drain work, gutter work and so forth.

According to an estimate obtained about 20 years ago, restoration would cost about $2.2 million. This figure is likely significantly higher now.

Besides rental of the marquee for birthday wishes and so forth, the group has no steady source of revenue besides the sometimes rental of two office spaces adjacent to the theater.

The Williamsburg Action Team’s board of directors recently held a meeting concerning the proposed eviction of its one tenant, and by the end of the meeting three out of its four members announced their intentions to resign from the group.

There were also motions during the meeting to dissolve the group and turn the building back over to the City of Williamsburg, which went nowhere thanks to a tie vote.

As I wrote earlier, the Williamsburg Action Team deserves much of the credit for saving the Lane Theater. I don’t think many people know this but before they purchased the structure in 2002, at least one local business owner had reached out to the city interested in purchasing the building so they could tear it down and build a parking lot there.

Over the years the Williamsburg Action Team has done a lot of hard work in an effort to preserve the building. I salute them for it, but sometimes there is only so much a small, volunteer group can do. The Williamsburg Action Team has done all that it can realistically do for the Lane Theater.

This isn’t a knock on the many hard working members of the Williamsburg Action Team, many of whom I’ve known over the years.

The reality is that if the Williamsburg Action Team was capable of getting the grant money to restore the Lane Theater, then it would have already done so. It hasn’t, and it likely won’t, no matter how well intentioned the group is.

Let’s say for the sake of argument the Williamsburg Action Team could get the money to restore the Lane Theater and that it actually restores the structure. Then what?

The reality is that the group lacks the personnel and the infrastructure to operate it effectively.

If the Williamsburg Action Team wants to see the Lane Theater restored, then it needs to look at turning the theater over to another entity with resources that it doesn’t possess, such as the City of Williamsburg.

The Whitley County school district would be another good entity for them to have a discussion with. Whitley County High School has a top notch drama program, but no theater. The school district also has no major building projects in the works currently.

The University of the Cumberlands also makes sense. UC has traditionally often had more work study students than it knows what to do with, which might be an answer for getting people to operate the theater.

While UC has a first class theater on campus, the reality is that it doesn’t seat a whole lot of people. Even after renovations and construction of a stage, the Lane Theater would probably still have about twice the seating capacity of UC’s existing theater.

Perhaps a public-private partnership might make sense with the City of Williamsburg getting the property and getting grant or state funding to restore it, then partnering with UC to operate the theater and maintain it.

At the very least, it is an interesting idea.

For any of this to happen, the Williamsburg Action Team has to accept that it has done all it can do to save the Lane Theater, and then turn it over to someone else, who potentially has more resources to renovate it.