By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
If all things go according to plan, the Paul Poag Theatre should be ready to open its doors again in a little more than a year, city council members learned Tuesday.
The council during its regular meeting heard an update on the Paul Poag Theatre rehabilitation project, including a timeline of repair work planned at the facility.
City Purchasing Agent Luis Menchaca introduced the presentation, telling council members that Victor Montes and Ricardo Solis, representatives of Able City, the city’s consultants on the project, would give the update.
Menchaca said in July 2024, the council approved a resolution to move ahead with the first phase of the Paul Poag Theatre rehabilitation project.
As Menchaca loaded the slide show, Mayor Al Arreola said, “All I want to know is when do we start construction?”
“It’ll be in the presentation,” Menchaca replied with a smile.
Montes reiterated he would be presenting the findings of the first phase of Able City’s work on the theater project.
Montes said he planned to go over a little of the theater’s history, the existing conditions encountered by the consultants, the work of visioning and community engagement for the project, next steps and a schedule.
Montes said he and his team found the history of the theater “extremely fascinating,” beginning with Paul Poag’s arrival in Del Rio in 1924. Poag opened the Princess Theatre here in 1928, then the Strand Theatre in 1931 and the Rita Theatre, which would become the Paul Poag, in 1941.
A fire damaged the Rita Theatre in 1943, but it was quickly rebuilt.
Montes said Poag died in 1958, and the theater was donated to the city in 1980.
Montes spoke about his company’s assessments and surveys of the building, including a three-dimensional scan of the facility’s interior and exterior.
“From that we were able to generate very detailed construction drawings for the existing conditions,” Montes said.
After that process, Able City began working on visioning and community engagement, starting with a stakeholder workshop in December 2024.
“What we learned at the meeting is that this theater is really the truest definition of a multi-use facility. Anything and everything has been done at that theater, from professional acts and road shows, dinner theater, dance recitals, beauty pageants. We understand weddings, quinceañeras, film festivals have been held there. You name it, this theater really serves this community,” Montes said.
He said part of the community engagement process was the crafting of vision and mission statements for the facility.
Montes said Able City hosted a public meeting about the theater project in February. He said the meeting included a poll in which attendees could use their phones to interact with the consultants’ questions.
“One of the questions we asked was, ‘What would you like to see at the Paul Poag Theatre in the future?’ and 37 percent emphasized improvements in basic needs like air conditioning, accessibility, restroom maintenance and lighting,” Montes said.
He said the “most liked” comment from the interaction was “open now.”
Montes then went over “next steps” in the project.
“Our original phase one of our work was to really take a look at this whole thing from a sort of a macro view of not just the building but the surrounding downtown area, facilitating economic growth and some things that we were going to take a look at, but again, as the community told us, we just really need to focus on figuring out a way to get this open. Not that we don’t want those other things, but let’s do that first, so we’re sort of pivoting from that and going into our next phase of work, which is just addressing the (theater’s) immediate needs at this time,” Montes told the council.
He said Able City’s work with the theater found a number of problems “that need to be addressed right away.”
Those include the building’s fire sprinkler system, egress lighting on the interior and the exterior, electrical repairs, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) repairs, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance and the entrance canopy.
“So, in a nutshell, what we are going to do is work immediately to bring the building to code so we can get the doors open. We’re only going to address the necessities to get us to that point in this next phase of the work. I do want to stress the possibilities for the future are not out of the picture, but I think we’re going to kind of push them to the side, but really we heard loud and clear from both the council and the constituents that we need to get this theater open,” Montes said.
Montes reviewed the schedule for work going forward, noting Able City plans to have the construction documents ready by the end of July, with the bid phase for the project planned for August and September.
He said construction on the theater could begin as early as October.
“We think that a six-month construction period just to address these items is probably reasonable so that maybe by this time next year we can open those doors again,” Montes said.
Montes also told the council Able City is working to have the theater listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but noted that he believes the theater’s marquee canopy will have to be rebuilt to have that happen.
After his presentation, Montes fielded questions from the council.
Arreola asked about rebuilding the marquee, and Montes said his company is working on a preliminary cost estimate for the work.
“The marquee is the building’s most defining historical feature, and if we even want to consider going the route of getting the building on the (national historic) register, we need to do that,” Montes said.
Arreola asked several other questions about the marquee, including whether it could be rebuilt as a digital marquee.
The mayor also asked about funding for the project, and City Manager Shawna Burkhart said there is about $2.8 million available for the project.
Montes said Able City’s estimate for the work to get the theater open is “in probably in that $2.8 million range, but that’s with a healthy contingency, and that also includes all the soft costs as well, design services.”
“The actual renovation itself is probably in that $2.2 to $2.5 million range. The expensive part is the mechanical systems, electrical, plumbing, fire protection,” Montes said.
The council took no formal action following the presentation.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
