An Encore for El Paso's Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre

A West Texas Treasure is Saved

By Jennifer Hiller

Built in the late 1920s, El Paso's Plaza Theatre was nearly demolished in the 1980s to make way for a parking lot. But a fund-raising campaign saved the building that is seeped in history. It will reopen in the fall and will accommodate symphonies, operas or Broadway touring shows.

Built on the site of one of El Paso's first settlements, the Plaza Theatre is undergoing a $25 million restoration that will reopen one of the largest, nonfunctioning theaters in the country.

The general contractor is a joint venture of the Fort Worth-based Thos S. Byrne Ltd. and the El Paso-based Arrow Building Corporation. ECM International of El Paso is the construction manager. Work on the 105,000-sq.-ft. building is scheduled to be complete in October.

The Plaza was designed by architect W. Scott Dunne in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and built during the late 1920s to accommodate vaudeville, movies and stage productions. Outside, the building was designed to look like a mission-style parapet, while the interior featured painted ceilings, gold leaf, mosaic-tiled floors and decorative metal railings.

The Plaza, which is in the middle of downtown El Paso, opened in 1930 and was billed as the largest theater of its kind between Dallas and Los Angeles. The Plaza closed in 1973. By 1986, the theater was nearly torn down to make way for a parking lot until the El Paso Community Foundation launched a last-ditch fundraising campaign to save the building. In 1991 the foundation was able to donate the building to the city of El Paso, and in 2001 a public-private partnership to restore the theater was formalized.

Funding for the project came from a combination of state, federal and local sources. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provided an $894,000 grant for asbestos cleanup and reconstruction. The Save America's Treasures program, a federal program that provides funds to address the urgent preservation needs of the nation's most significant historic sites, collections and works of art, has also provided funding, as have the city of El Paso and the El Paso Community Foundation.

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Restoration planning started about three years ago when the city hired ECM International as the construction manager. Asbestos abatement was the first priority. It was removed from the ceiling surfaces, walls and some of the pipe insulation, said Rick Mojica with ECM. A diesel tank buried on the site also had to be removed.

"The project is dear to the city," said Mojica, who remembers going to the Plaza Theatre as a child. "We are using a lot of local subcontractors, and all of the workers have a story about the Plaza." Bill Scott, project manager and vice president of operations at Thos S. Byrne, said the biggest challenge has been working around the tight spaces inside the building. "Protection is an active component of the work," he added. "We have to take pictures before we even touch anything."

The theater occupies half of a city block. A hotel, convention center and bus station are located nearby, and a museum is under construction, making it difficult to move equipment in and out of the area, Scott said.

The original theater seated 2,350 people, but in order to meet ADA requirements and new building codes, the renovated Plaza Theatre will seat 2,100, Mojica said.

To expand the stage to a depth of 50 ft. - a size that can accommodate Broadway shows - El Paso permanently sacrificed a lane each of traffic and parking on Main Street, Mojica said. The original stage was built at an angle that ranged from 17 to 32 ft. in depth, a size that cannot accommodate modern stage productions. The back of the stage was torn down for the expansion and a 100-ft. fly tower is being added above the stage.

Because there are no columns on the main floor of the theater, no seats have obstructed views. The design feature was made possible by a 60-ton I-beam that supports the mezzanine levels - at one time the largest piece of steel in Texas. Scott said the original steel I-beam remains in place and is structurally sound.

Washington, D.C.-based Martinez & Johnson Architecture used a system of 72 speakers in the ceiling that can help change the acoustics of the theater to accommodate symphonies, operas or Broadway shows. The speakers help bounce sound off of the ceiling in a slight delay, and are hidden from the audience, which maintains the historic look of the theater, Mojica said. This "electronic architecture" allows acoustical changes without actually changing the ceiling structure, he said.

For example, the original 55-ft. ceiling can now sound as though it is a 90-ft. ceiling - the ideal height for symphony performances, Mojica said.

While the original theater is being restored, the Plaza Annex, which connects to the theater and was built at the same time, has been gutted. The new annex will include a restaurant, a 195-seat children's theater and a rooftop patio.

"It's very detailed as far as tying in the new structure to the existing structure," Scott said. "We are rebuilding both ends of the building and bringing the stage and production end of the building up to standards. We have a structural effort happening at the same time we have people in there restoring decorative, historical paintings."

The restoration has turned up plenty of treasures. When original light fixtures were taken down for rewiring, workers discovered that the fixtures, which they assumed were made of glass, are actually shaved stone - a process that cannot be replicated. The original marquee was salvaged as well.

"The theater has been well-preserved," Mojica said. "We are cleaning the original paint whenever possible."

All phases of construction have had to meet historic renovation guidelines. To stay true to the building's original design and accommodate Texas Historical Commission requirements, brick, stone, plaster, marble, granite and glass are a few of the materials used on the building's skin.