CRA approves $14 million for downtown Tampa theater

The money will go toward the second phase of a renovation that will, among other things, add a second screening room.

By Louis Llovio
| 1:20 p.m. April 27, 2023
| 2 Free Articles Remaining!

Tampa's CRA has approved $14 million for the second phase of a renovation of the Tampa Theatre that will, among other things, add a second screening room.

Tampa Bay-Lakeland

Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency has approved $14 million for renovations at the Tampa Theatre, the city's historic downtown movie house.

According to a statement, the CRA adopted a community advisory committee’s vote to support the theatre’s funding request for the second phase of a restoration project that, in part, will add a second screening room and support space, increase production space, enhance technology and add amenities for theatergoers.

The agency’s board voted unanimously to approve the funding.

John Bell, Tampa Theatre’s president and CEO, says in the statement that the goal is to “present a fully restored” theater by 2026, the 100-year anniversary.

Phase one of the restoration began in 2017 and addressed infrastructure needs to the interior and exterior of the building.

The theater was built in 1926 and was a popular destination for decades. But, according to a history on its website, by the 1960s television and a migration to the suburbs meant fewer people were going to downtown movies palaces that dotted cities across the country.

“Audiences dwindled, costs rose, and many of our nation’s finest movie palaces were demolished,” the site says, adding that Tampa Theatre faced a similar fate in 1973.

A deal was reached to save it and today it is managed by the nonprofit Tampa Theatre Foundation.

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Louis Llovio

Louis Llovio is the deputy managing editor at the Business Observer. Before going to work at the Observer, the longtime business writer worked at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Maryland Daily Record and for the Baltimore Sun Media Group. He lives in Tampa.