Springfield movie theater now open

Springfield Town Manager Robert Forguites stood outside the newly named Springfield Cinemas 3, for once not wielding a giant pair of scissors at a ceremonial ribbon-cutting.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110715/NEWS02/707159923

Published July 15, 2011 in the Rutland Herald

Springfield movie theater now open

By Susan Smallheer

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Town Manager Robert Forguites stood outside the newly named Springfield Cinemas 3, for once not wielding a giant pair of scissors at a ceremonial ribbon-cutting.

“The night of the fire, I was standing outside for hours, watching them pour water on the top of the building and watch it all come out the front door of the theater,” Forguites said.

“I wondered that night whether we’d ever have movies again in Springfield,” he said quietly.

Wonder no more: The theater reopened Thursday and will show its first films today, with a midnight showing of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.”

The movie theater is part of a $3.5 million project to rebuild the Ellis Block, which was gutted by a five-alarm fire the evening of July 8, 2008.

By the time the fire was out, 40 people were homeless and several businesses shut down in downtown Springfield. A 19th-century cornerstone of the downtown streetscape was gutted.

While the fire didn’t spread to the neighboring McKinley Block, its tenants were forced out due to water and smoke damage.

A short year before, in July 2007, the theater had been the center of attention amid national hoopla over the international debut of “The Simpsons Movie,” which Springfield had won the right to host in a national competition among all towns named Springfield.

A boatload of Hollywood types, including “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, came to Springfield to celebrate the oddball premiere, complete with a Simpson yellow carpet and a crush of international media.

Thursday was a day for dreams come true as well as a celebration of hard work, as dozens of people from around the state who had a hand in rebuilding the Ellis Block came to tour the theater.

The name has changed, and there are now three screens. Several key details, including the movie marquee and the front entrance still need to be done. Last week has seen a rush of workers to get the movie house ready.

“Thank god for Harry Potter,” joked Nancy Owens, president of Housing Vermont, one of the key partners in the rebuilding effort.

It was the movie-business-imposed deadline of July 15 that got the theater ready to open, and it will show the summer’s blockbuster, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” at midnight, bringing the big picture show back to downtown Springfield after a three-year hiatus.

Owens and Bill Morlock, executive director of the Springfield Housing Authority, the other main partner in the redevelopment project, thanked dozens of people, from construction workers to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to state financing, preservation and development officials, and the theater’s architect.

“It was a real partnership of a lot of different people and people behind the scenes,” Morlock said.

“They backed this leap of faith,” said Bob Flint, executive director of the Springfield Regional Development Corp.

Morlock paid tribute to two key people involved in the redevelopment who died before they saw it complete: Steve Mehlenbacher, the theater’s former manager, and Graham Hunter. He thanked the building’s original owners, Herb and Daryl Wisch, who donated the building to the housing authority.

“We’ll push on to the end,” Owens said.

The nine apartments in the building won’t be completed for about another six weeks, and the theater needs a couple of weeks of finish work.

Without the “earmarks” from the federal government, and the help of Leahy, the redevelopment project probably wouldn’t have happened, said Gus Seelig, executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.

“It was earmarks that made this project possible,” Seelig said.

The grand opening of the Springfield Cinemas 3 was held Thursday afternoon. The town’s longtime movie theater, which has gone through several names and owners, was gutted by fire three years ago.
Photo: Susan Smallheer / Staff Photo