PORT ANGELES — Are there 235 people out there with $1,000 for a Lincoln Theater renaissance?
Scott Nagel and his band of businesspeople hope so.
This week, Nagel began a monthlong campaign — titled Light up the Lincoln — to raise $235,000 to buy the downtown movie house and turn it into a nonprofit performing arts center.
If successful, Nagel and crew would at last change the “building for sale” message on the marquee at First and Lincoln streets and begin a new era in the 99-year-old Lincoln’s life.
It’s been nearly a year since the theater closed.
Sun Basin Theatres of Wenatchee shuttered it March 2, having decided against refitting it with costly digital projection equipment.
Back in December, Nagel made Sun Basin an offer of $235,000 for the Lincoln, contingent on raising that money from supporters inside 60 days.
Nagel, longtime director of the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival and other events in Seattle and on the Olympic Peninsula, hopes to be executive director — not owner — of a nonprofit Lincoln.
His vision is to bring in major donors, and he said Tuesday that he still needs those.
And since such backers have yet to appear, Nagel got an extension on the Lincoln purchase: He now has until the end of March to gather funding.
So far, “we have about 15 people” who have pledged donations toward reopening the Lincoln, Nagel added.
“We’re over $35,000” from those would-be investors, whom he declined to name.
In a Facebook post that went out to at least 1,000 people through Nagel’s Facebook page and various repostings, he outlines the Light up the Lincoln effort.
Those who pledge $1,000 will be called “founders,” with their names inscribed on a plaque in the theater lobby and listed in published material. These and donations of any size are welcome, Nagel notes. They are tax-deductible, as the Lincoln Theater has been brought under the umbrella of the nonprofit Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts (www.JFFA.org).
The detailed Lincoln Theater plan is available via the “Light up the Lincoln” Facebook post and by contacting Nagel at Birchhills@mindspring.com.
He’s also available to give presentations to community groups.
Nagel has worked with Dan Gase, a Port Angeles City Council member and the real estate agent listing the property; with local architect Michael Gentry; and with a variety of downtown businesspeople to envision a 500-seat venue.
It’s the medium-size theater Port Angeles needs, Nagel said, and it would be wide open to local groups, companies and presenters.
And if the end of March arrives and he’s $15,000 or so short of the $235,000 purchase price, Nagel said, he’ll ask for more time from the seller and that much more money from the community.
Leslie Robertson of Revitalize Port Angeles, the 400-member nongovernmental group formed in October, is one of the people who reposted Nagel’s Light up the Lincoln announcement on Facebook.
The theater “is the centerpiece for downtown . . . Having it empty like that is the worst possible thing,” Robertson said Tuesday, adding that her first job as a Port Angeles teen was taking tickets and ushering at the Lincoln in the 1980s.
The $235,000 goal “is pretty high-reaching, especially for our little town. But I think it’s important enough for the community” that the purchase will happen.
“I think there are enough people with more than $1,000,” she said, “who love this town.”
Robertson, a homemaker and mother of two teenagers, added that her family will “definitely” pledge a donation, though they can’t afford a large one.
Restoration of old movie theaters has happened in other communities, she said.
“Why not us?”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
