PORT ANGELES — With nine days to deadline, pledges of $25 to $10,000 are coming in.
So report Scott Nagel and Karen Powell, partners in the Light Up the Lincoln campaign, an effort to purchase downtown Port Angeles’ shuttered Lincoln Theater and reopen it as a nonprofit performing arts center.
About $70,000 in pledges have been made, Powell said Friday evening — adding that Friday alone saw $11,000.
That tally is less than a third of the $235,000 offer the pair have made on the Lincoln. But as the last day — March 23 — nears, Powell is resolute.
“To be candid, we hope to raise the purchase amount from companies, from some core sources in and around the north Peninsula,” she said.
Powell and Nagel are in conversation, she added, with potential supporters who could “step up toward the end.”
By late this week, “we’re hoping we’ll have a good story for you,” Powell said.
Nagel posted a detailed plan for a nonprofit performing arts center on the “Light Up the Lincoln” page at www.RevitalizePortAngeles.org, with a “Send a Pledge Today” button.
He reported that more than 50 individuals and businesses have pledged $500, $1,000, $5,000 — and yes, one person did give $10,000.
Any amount is welcome, Nagel added.
In December, Nagel offered the Lincoln’s owner, Sun Basin Theatres of Wenatchee, $235,000 — contingent on bringing the money in from donors who want to see the movie house reborn.
He had 60 days to do it.
When that ran out, Nagel got an extension to late March.
Meantime, the theater’s marquee still says “for sale,” as it has since last summer.
Nagel forges on, making presentations to community groups from the Rotary Club to the Realtors association. He’s explaining how business owners can donate and receive tax rebates. And he’s inviting people to contact him to talk about it all, at 360-808-3940 and LightuptheLincoln@gmail.com.
Restore theater
A restored Lincoln, with 480 seats, one big movie screen plus a proscenium stage for concerts, plays and parties, will be “owned by the community,” Nagel said.
The director of the annual Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in Port Angeles, Nagel hopes to also manage this new nonprofit center at First and Lincoln streets.
Among the supporters of the whole project are Ed Bedford, the Bedford’s Sodas owner who’s lived here all his life, and Melissa Williams, the executive director of the Feiro Marine Life Center on City Pier, who moved here in the spring of 2014.
“I think the [Lincoln] project would be a huge benefit” for the marine center and downtown, Williams said.
She added that it would give the Feiro a venue to hold lots of events with speakers, film series and performances.
Both Williams and Bedford acknowledge some nay- and doomsayers when it comes to an idea like this one.
Yet “I’m an eternal optimist,” Bedford said.
“I can see the benefit for the total community” of reactivating the 99-year-old movie house.
On the Lincoln’s www.RevitalizePortAngeles.org page, Nagel has posted a detailed plan for the Lincoln’s reopening, as well as “small-town theatre success stories,” showing how old theaters in California and Texas have been brought back to life.
“This is not a new thing,” not some “harebrained scheme,” he quipped.
Midsize theater
Clallam County needs a midsize theater, Nagel said; it has small venues at Peninsula College as well as the 1,100-seat Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center.
The Lincoln would be the place for anything in between, from conferences and seminars to film festivals.
Sun Basin Theatres, which owns Deer Park Cinema just east of Port Angeles, placed a no-compete clause in the Lincoln sales contract, prohibiting the new owner from showing first-run movies.
There’s a whole world of films out there beyond first-run, Nagel figures.
He and Port Angeles architect Michael Gentry envision a grand screen — looming over a 34-foot-wide stage — for the downtown theater.
“There’s so much stuff that never even comes here,” Nagel added, in terms of movies, concerts, stage plays and lectures — even New York City’s Metropolitan Opera.
City’s future
The Met broadcasts its productions on movie screens around the country, including one at the Rose Theatre in Port Townsend.
Williams, like Nagel, sees the Lincoln playing a key role in Port Angeles’ future.
“This community really needs a win, a project, a victory,” she said.
“I think what it really requires is for the community to hope a little bit, and believe.
“I hope, and believe in this.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
