Comments from PurplePenguin

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PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Jan 25, 2009 at 3:42 am

If you have any more pictures we would love to get copies from you.

We plan on doing some kind of a “before and After” page and the more pictures we have the better.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 31, 2006 at 8:26 am

I threw a website together over night for the theatre. it will eventully become a site to see what movies are playing and such but right now it’s pretty much just to show and tell what we’re doing to the place.

it was thrown together rather quick, and I’m by far not a proffesional web designer but please tell me what you think.

www.oldrialto.com

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 30, 2006 at 9:36 am

with the way things are going it will probably be about 6 months until we have the money to go back to Texas and get all the info and pictures needed on the projectors.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 29, 2006 at 6:06 pm

I’m not near them right now but I’ll see what I can do.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 29, 2006 at 5:32 pm

we’re not planning on restoring the building to original, about the only thing that’s going to be the same is the four outside walls, not even the roof is going to be the same, we have to replace it. we’re going to compleatly redesign the inside. also the building came with two small connected buildings, one on each side. We plan on turning one of them into an arcade and connecting it with the lobby of the theatre. the other we plan on opening up a video game store in where people can buy, sell or trade console video games. between the three we’re hoping it will make enough to simply pay the bills and feed us, if so we’ll be happy.

we won’t have to worry about a place to live since we can live on the top floor of the building and if this doesn’t work out we at least end out with an interesting place to live if nothing else.

we’re thinking of selling the old projectors if we can.

we chose this theatre because it was cheap to start with and we can put the money into it as we get it (we arn’t rich people)

all we did to the marquee was board up the bottom of it, the city wanted it a little more presentable before we left. it was wide open to where you could see all the rotted lumber in it and a bunch of wires were hanging down.

we have a lot of work ahead of us but at least we can do it at oour own pace.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 29, 2006 at 7:51 am

I just noticed the address is wrong here, it’s 312 W. Main st. not 320.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 29, 2006 at 7:42 am

it is pretty slow there and there are a lot of empty buildings but I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a ghost town. close but not quite. They are, however, getting a super Wal-Mart there soon and a lot of people think that will help the town grow.

While we were there working on the marquee we had a lot of interested people come up and ask us about what we were doing. When we told them we planned on re-opening the theatre all of them seemed to support the idea very much.

PurplePenguin
PurplePenguin commented about Rialto Theater on Aug 27, 2006 at 7:30 pm

We just found this forum…We are the new owners. You are correct that the place needs alot of work. Everything has been torn out and basicaly left in the middle of the floor. All of the seats are gone. When we went to look at the theater after purchasing it I almost killed my husband. The projectors were indeed still there. They are cast iron and weigh a ton. they are in storage in San Antonio TX. The original A/C compressor is in the basement and the size of a car, we believe we will need a crane to remove it. We haven’t had any monitary offers to help in the restoration so it will be a family project we expect to last a couple of years. The building can not be demolished due to the fact that the walls of this building support the buildings on either side with steel beams that run the width of the building. The seller decided to sell this theater because he is in the process of restoring other theaters in more populated areas.
The only floor remaining is the one under the projectors. If you have any questions we will be happy to answer them. You are welcome to contact us.