Riviera Theatre

Fitzpatrick-McElroy Co. Will Begin Work Soon As Weather Permits

At a meeting of officials and representatives of the Fitzpatrick-McElroy Company held in Chicago a few days ago, following which various details were cleaned up in Three Rivers, the present site of the Lintz store was chosen as the location for the new modern theater which the company will build in this city as soon as spring weather opens sufficiently to permit construction operations.

Luther H. Warner, manager of the Rex Theater for some years, and H. W. Coakley, also representing the Fitzpatrick-McElroy company here, attended the meeting in Chicago where every detail of the proposed theater was gone into and plans for the future consummated.

The location selected is 50 by 200 feet and the new building will cover the entire area. This will be a thoroughly modern, fireproof building which will house the theater, a modern store building and suites of offices on the second floor.

The building will be what is known as the new bleacher types of theater. There will also be one store building on the first floor and suites of offices on the second floor.
The theater itself will be of the most modern construction, complete with pipe organ and the very latest word in projecting equipment, while the seating will be opera chairs with every convenience for the comfort of the public. There will be installed the most modern type of ventilating and cooling system which will make the playhouse comfortable at any period of the year--in fact the house when completed will not be excelled--if equaled--by any theater in Kalamazoo or other southern Michigan city.

The stage will be of sufficient size for legitimate or vaudeville or the production of home talent plays, while the house will seat approximately 1,000 people.
Indicates Progress

When asked why the Fitzpatrick-McElroy Company was ready to spend or advise the expenditure of something over $125,000 for a playhouse in Three Rivers, Mr. Coakley stated that they had made a careful survey of the city and its theatrical needs and the playhouse is the result of a careful study of that survey.

He said that the local industries have great promise for the future, both for immediate business and for general development, that good roads are bringing hundreds more people to the city almost daily and that it is the belief of his company is on the threshold of the greatest development and growth in her history. The new theater will be of real benefit to every businessman in the city nn that it will bring many people here who would otherwise be diverted to other places.

Rex to Continue

The company will continue the Rex Theater for the present at least. Work will probably start on the wrecking of the Lintz building about March first and it is the plan to hold the opening of the new theater about Labor day or early September.

Local investors have to a great degree made the new theater possible as there has been already subscribed more than half the amount it was expected would be raised in this city. The work has been particularly pleasing, Mr. Coakley said, because many local people are already stockholders in the Fitzpatrick-McElroy Company and having received no less than 12 per cent for any one year, the investment has been very enticing. Subscriptions are still being received and Manager Warner at the Rex theater will give out any information desired.

Many Michigan Theaters

The company, which will erect, own and manage the local theater, is not a novice in the theater business as this is exactly the fiftieth house on the circuit and the twenty-second theater they have bought or built in Michigan.

They have apparently reduced the theater business to an exact science by which they proceed not as an experiment but rather with a definite knowledge as to the outcome.

Vaudette Building

Fitzpatrick-McElroy company has also held a lease on the Vaudette building. This building was recently sold to B.E. Smith and the theatrical company is releasing the lease. Mr. Smith will begin at once to remodel the store into a modern business property although he has not definitely decided just what business will locate there.

The Lintz Store

H.E. Lintz will continue the Lintz Store in the building to be wrecked as long as it is possible to continue and will probably be able to show goods through the spring season. He has not definitely determined at this time just where he will open the store following the wrecking of the Lintz building.

What theater Means

The new theater means much to the amusement loving public of this city. Manager Warner of the Rex has been giving the people of the community better amusement facilities than is usual in cities of the size of Three Rivers and rival productions running in much larger cities of the class of 25,000 population and up. This has been possible largely through the great buying power of the Fitzpatrick-McElroy Company and with the new theater an actuality there will be shown here first releases contemporary with their appearances in Chicago or Detroit.

Representative Coakley, who has been connected with Fitzpatrick-McElroy for many years of the eighteen during which they have continuously been conducting a successful theatrical business, stated it is his personal opinion that Three Rivers with her great natural resources, the large industrial concerns firmly established, and the lesser ones getting under way, the city is facing the greatest period of growth and development in her history.

(Three Rivers Commercial)