Historic Lincoln Theatre to be gutted, converted to retail
The New World Symphony has sold the Lincoln Theatre to a company that plans to gut the theater interior and renovate the space for retail shops, bringing to an end the venue’s seven decades of entertainment on Lincoln Road.
The historic Miami Beach performance venue incubated the New World Symphony from its scruffy beginnings in the late 1980s. The old theater, built in the 1930s as a movie house, was purchased by Miami-based Savitar Realty Advisors, which plans to convert it into retail stores, according to a news release from Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LLP, which arranged the sale.
“We’ve seen the emergence of numerous retailers opening flagship stores on Lincoln Road that have never before had a presence in Florida,” said Luis Castillo, associate director at HFF, in a written statement. “Lincoln Road is in the midst of a renaissance of sorts and this space is positioned at the epicenter.”
Although the 704-seat hall and suite of offices at 541 Lincoln Road was never a particularly impressive base of operations, it had a bohemian allure and a lively acoustic that suited the adventurous orchestra, made up of young conservatory graduates on three-year fellowships. When the orchestra first moved in, the musicians had to contend with a colony of feral cats that had gotten there first.
The orchestra is constructing a new performance complex a block to the north, designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry.
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2 Responses to “Historic Lincoln Theatre to be gutted, converted to retail”
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Tue Feb 9, 2010
at 12:24 pm
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Posted Feb 20, 2010 at 9:22 am by Margaret
Wow! Just what we need!!! More retail crap to buy and less arts venues. Happy money!!
Posted Mar 07, 2010 at 8:45 pm by Sofia
How awful is to know that the little culture space is being killed, what kind of business you can run when you are killing the art at the same time?