Fort Mill theater redevelopment to start in June

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Fort Mill‘s Old Center Theatre will see new construction for the first time in decades when Kuester Commercial Real Estate begins redevelopment of the historic property in June.

And the company is hoping what was once a reminder of the city’s divided past can be recast as a symbol of progress.

“The redevelopment of the Old Center Theatre will be a unique opportunity to save a portion of Fort Mill’s history and position it for its future success,” said KCRE President Shaw Kuester.

The theater portion of the building was gutted by a series of fires, the most recent in the 1990s, but KCRE is trying to breathe new life into the shell of that portion of the building.

The building has two entrances. The Main Street face was formerly the concession area and was spared in the conflagration that wrecked the rear portion near the turn of the century.

“EW Process has been in there since the early 2000s,” said Kuester. “There is nothing in the theater portion now. It’s just bare floors and bricks and the beams that once held up the mezzanine of the theater.”

But the mezzanine is not what locals called it back then. At that time it was known as “the colored section,” Kuester explained.

The building was originally constructed in 1947 and operated as a theater until it’s closure in the 1970s. But during its first few decades of operation, like many theaters in the segregated South, the Main Street entrance was for whites and the Academy Street entrance was for blacks.

“When I was researching the building prior to this project, discovering that was a little bit of a shock,” Kuester said. “I’m not all that young, but I’m not so old to where that doesn’t surprise me either.”

The sign noting the “Colored Entrance” is still visible on the old bricks at the rear of the building.

Plans call for the Academy Street entrance of the building to have about 6,250 square feet of loft-style offices with exposed brick and open ceilings emphasizing the original architecture of the building.

The Main Street entrance will be home to about 3,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space with a patio and another 3,000 square feet of space that could serve as an office or for more retail use, said KCRE Associate Developer Chris Mannix.

“What we have is the building right now is occupied in the Main Street portion by EW Process. The front part got renovated but the back part never got renovated after the last fire in the 1990s,” Mannix said. “That is the part we’re going to work on first.”

Mannix said the current plan is for EW Process to relocate to the back part of the building and take over the first floor.

“Then we will renovate the Main Street portion to have a first-floor unit and a second-floor unit. The front Main Street portion has the best retail spot on the first floor. The second floor of that part of the building could be a retail spot but most likely it is going to be office,” Mannix said.

In addition to EW Process, KCRE has announced one new tenant for the building. Insight Business Solutions will move into the Academy Street portion of the building in late 2016. Kuester is still searching for tenants for the remaining 3,000 square feet of retail or restaurant space and 6,100 square feet of office space.