The Columbia Theatre is on the market.
The asking price for the 88-year-old heritage site is $3.3 million, according to an online real estate listing from Colliers International.
Since 2011, the building has been owned by Lafflines Comedy Club owner Barry Buckland, who renovated the former Burr Theatre from top to bottom shortly after receiving the keys from the city. The main theatre changed to a Vegas-style dinner format, while the second theatre upstairs was transformed into a show lounge for stage presentations and private functions.
But it seems the cost of the restoration project, specifically bringing the arts facility up to code, was almost a million dollars more than Buckland had anticipated.
“You never know the magnitude when you get into an old building like this,” Buckland told the Record of his decision to sell. “Just to drill a hole through (the floors), there were 18 inches of petrified wood just to get a plumbing pipe through … but once we got in here and found out we had to upgrade so many things, from the electrical to the sprinkler system, we went above and beyond. Even the fire guys came in here and said, ‘You did so well on everything.’”
Buckland said because the reno costs, which were near the $2-million mark, soared beyond what he thought, plans to build a new kitchen and a new marquee were put on hold.
“Between the two of those, that could get up to another $400,000,” he noted.
The local entertainer said when it comes to listing the place, he’s looking for either a business partner, who could share the investment with him, or the “right person” who’s willing to buy the whole package.
“We’re just not going to go sell it and have strippers in here,” Buckland joked. “I put a lot of hard work into building this place. I’m not going to see it go to someone who’s not going to do the same thing we do. We want the performing arts to stay in here.”
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr, meanwhile, believes there’s a silver lining in all of this.
“Whoever gets in there right now, they’re right in on the ground floor of a new Columbia Street and a new exciting downtown. That is such an important component of where we’re going in the downtown, I would say it’s a great investment in just a rejuvenated downtown New Westminster,” he said.
Asked if there’s any chance the city would buy the building back, Puchmayr told the Record it’s not something on the horizon.
“The city’s already engaged in a lot of projects in the arts, in museums; we don’t have that kind of resource to simply buy a property like that. … To go back the other way now, it’s certainly nothing that I’m entertaining.”
The theatre opened in 1927 and was later named after local actor Raymond Burr, who was known for his roles in the TV dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. In 2000, the city purchased the building for $700,000 from the New Westminster Fraternal Order of Eagles and leased it to the Raymond Burr Performing Arts Society until 2006, when it decided not to renew the lease. City reports at that time said the building needed millions of dollars in repair work, and given the high price tag, council decided to look in the private sector for a buyer.
The society, meanwhile, also came to the table during the request for proposal process and put in a $1 million bid for the theatre, but lost to Buckland’s $850,000 bid.
“The society wasn’t able to demonstrate they were in the capacity, in my opinion, of pulling off such a renovation,” said Puchmayr.
But society president Ted Eddy disagrees.
Eddy said when they made the bid, there was a five-year capital plan in place that would have seen more than $7 million spent on restoring the theatre.
In a letter to the Record, Eddy said the news of the sale is both a tragedy and a comedy.
“The tragedy was the original decision (when) the city lost a viable performance venue. The comedy is that the city allowed that performance venue to go out to a commercial enterprise, rather than be kept an asset that was bringing in a lot of money for the city,” he explained during a recent phone interview.
“If the city thought the Burr Society couldn’t make it there and if Mr. Buckland finds himself in a position he has to sell it, then I guess, a true tragedy is that New West is becoming a town where these kinds of facilities can’t be supported on a commercial basis. Obviously people are going elsewhere for those kinds of entertainments as New West becomes more and more a bedroom town.”
