Powell River Film Society receives grant for restoration project at Patricia Theatre

Historic Patricia Theatre has received a $71,485 grant from Heritage BC for an exterior restoration project.

This is the second grant from Heritage BC. Powell River Film Society executive director Gary Shilling said the society officially became owners of the theatre on October 1, 2021, and had applied for the first Heritage BC grant for funding to finish the roof, put storm windows on the building and get a mechanical assessment and an historical architectural assessment.

The mechanical and architectural assessments will allow the theatre to move ahead down the road, he added.

“All the electrical and plumbing systems are ancient,” said Shilling. “We’ll have to replace them.”

Shilling said the architect, Donald Luxton, is a heritage architect from Vancouver, who is going to come to the theatre and perform an architectural assessment.

“As you might guess, there’s a ton of work to do in a building built in 1928,” said Shilling. “Prior to the film society taking the building up, there was no means for a private business to get funding, so we are fulfilling the promise we made to the community to take their investment in the building and to move it forward to help preserve it for generations to come.

“The first Heritage BC grant was for the roof and those two important assessments,” said Shilling. “The next one we applied for was the 150 Time Immemorial Grant, so we had to describe the importance of the Patricia Theatre to the community from a heritage perspective. We were successful. They funded us specifically for repairing the windows and doing a complete paint job on the exterior of the building.”

Shilling said to qualify for this latest grant, the organization applying for it has to contribute 20 per cent of the project cost. The film society has pledged to put in $20,000 for the project to complete it.

Shilling said the film society has a building committee that is looking after prioritizing what gets done.

“The decision was made to start from the outside in, and protect the envelope first, then look after the mechanical systems, then look after the auditorium,” said Shilling. “We’re really at the beginning of what I see as a five-year plan to get the building to the state where we feel like it’s back in its original glory. That’s our goal.”

Shilling said the film society plans to apply for grant funding from Powell River Community Forest. He said that while contributing to the purchase of the theatre was beyond the community forest’s scope, the film society is hopeful to secure funding for projects.

“We’re putting forward to them a request to fund replacement of the canopy and a fire escape off of the balcony so we can use the balcony to its full capacity again,” said Shilling. “People are rediscovering the balcony. It’s a fun place to be.

“It’s really an exciting time at the theatre. As I expected, the community support is being echoed provincially and I hope, in future, we’ll look for federal funding, too.”

Shilling said community support remains strong. He said the theatre recently hosted a successful film festival.

“I had so much positive feedback from people,” said Shilling. “They were so happy to be back in the theatre and back at the film festival.”

Shilling said Laura Wilson has been managing the theatre for almost six months and is doing “an awesome job.”

“Our programming has expanded as well and I’m really excited about the potential,” said Shilling. “People are starting to come back to the theatre. It’s good to see.”