The landmark theater here opened in 1936, a single screen theater with 1,500 seats. It reverted between first-run and second-run films several times, but after 2012 the theater was severely in the red and closed. The date of closure was September 9, 2012. Sixty-eight days later, on November 16, 2012, an arson was organized on the site by arraigned parties, causing $750,000 of damage to a building worth decidedly less than that figure. But the building has untold value to the community.

Work done by our firm so far included measured drawings, feasibility studies, character studies, and the three-dimensional modeling and renderings shown here. We stand poised for the community to perform a service of renovating and repurposing the building, and without the fees of overpriced downtown design consultancies with massive overheads and predictable one-size-fits all design motifs.

A resolution from the City of Parma claims the building has “Tudor architectural design, Gothic detailing, stone elements and strong masonry detailing. Although these are all wishful thoughts, none of these facts are actually true. It is a brick building typical of its era with a dryvit (synthetic stucco) marquee, constructed to replace a previous one built of architectural metal. Any architectural value will come from the future design and new implementation of the theater, not from some wistful interpretation of imagined details of the past.

http://parmaobserver.com/read/2013/08/01/the-parma-theater-a-cinema-and-a-sense-of-place