Remodeled movie palace is lynchpin of downtown redevelopment

"I simply saw an opportunity here to help the community and aid in its redevelopment." --Brooks Kellogg

By Larry Dreiling

The evening of April 12, 1950, was a grand night for downtown in the sleepy college town of Hays, Kan.

Spotlights pierced the sky as more than 1,000 people, dressed to the nines, embarked into the fantasy world of the movies with the opening of the new Fox Theater. First-nighters enjoyed Joel McCrea and Arlene Dahl in the epic western The Outriders.

Fast-forward a little over 50 years. Downtown is now a place for the courthouse, a few banks and some law offices. The coming of the Interstate caused businesses to flock to the off-ramp where it soon becomes the land of the shopping mall and Wal-Mart.

And the Fox is closed, a victim of a corporate decision to shutter the now downtrodden building and expand the local multiplex.

Somehow, almost as soon as the Fox closes, Downtown Hays begins to find its second wind. Investors see opportunity in the empty storefronts and a closed hospital.

Renovations are made to these facilities and trendy stores and dining places emerge. Older stores feel the pulse, too, and join in the downtown renaissance.

From the remnants of the offices of the local electric and gas utility comes forth a brewpub. The hospital is renovated into a high-tech office building. The old hospital cafeteria is rejuvenated into a charming bakery, becoming the home of what some consider the best caterer in town.

Yet, still, the good old Fox Theater perches near the end of Main Street like a forlorn puppy in a kennel, waiting for someone to love it.

Sales decision

Dickinson Theatres, the owner of the Fox, decides to shed the old relic to the City of Hays for $1, with the provision that whatever happens to the building, no movies less than one year old be shown there.

With that proviso, the city decides to auction off the Fox. The question is: Who will buy the once proud anchor of downtown and bring back its luster?

Then come the questions: Once someone buys it, what will become of it? Will the car dealer next door tear it down for more space on his lot? Will the bank on the other side of the alley tear it down for more parking? You can't run movies and there's already a nice performing arts center in town. Does the town really need another place like that?

Enter two guys with a penchant for making things happen: Old friends Brooks Kellogg and Dave Van Doren.

Kellogg's dad was a professor at the local college, now known as Fort Hays State University. He and his family moved away when he was a kid, but loved his experiences at that time enough to return there for college. He then left again to find his mark in Chicago, working as a high school teacher then at places like AT&T and IBM before beginning a career in real estate that has Kellogg moving properties along Chicago's Gold Coast. Kellogg is also a home developer in Steamboat Springs, Colo., with a home there, as well.

Van Doren is an FHSU graduate, too. He founded a company that makes precast concrete buildings, sold it, and now is a Hays property developer. Together, Kellogg and Van Doren have combined their talents for renovations to a local fraternity house and the creation of the new apartment-style housing complex on the FHSU campus.

In March of this year, the city placed the Fox on the auction block. Van Doren sent an e-mail to Kellogg telling him about the auction.

What to do with it?

"Neither one of us had any idea that if we bought the thing what we'd do with it and neither did anyone else who was thinking about buying it," Kellogg said.

During that time, FHSU president Dr. Edward Hammond was staying with Kellogg and his wife, Gail, in Steamboat for a spring break ski trip.

"Ed said he had looked at the Fox and that it was still in pretty good shape, but there wasn't anything the university could do with it," Kellogg said. "I then gave him a list of five things we could with the property. Number four on my list--though it was number one in my mind because I didn't want to prejudice his response--was to turn it into a wedding pavilion.

"He told me number four because there was such a need for a meeting place like that. He said it would be a home run. I told him agreed, since I've been to a lot of weddings in town and there just wasn't a really classy place in town with great food and drink to hold a wedding. Let's face it, daddy's little girl is getting married and he wants it to be a great day for her."

Finding the financing

Kellogg was the winning bidder for the building, paying the city $101,000. Immediately, he announced the theater would morph into the Fox Pavilion, whose primary use would be a wedding hall. Financing the purchase and renovation took some doing, since most Hays banks are branches of large out-of-town operations.

"I can't say enough about how nice Wayne Woofter at Emprise Bank was in getting us the immediate temporary funding we needed to get started," Kellogg said. "It was a much larger loan than they anticipated. Larger than I anticipated, and he did it with basically a signature and a handshake."

Leave it to the locally owned First National Bank to develop a permanent financial package. It was a tricky call for the bank, since the building permit called for construction costs of up to $3 million yet the loan was approved without the usual submission of architect's drawings often called for by banks in financing such a large project.

"This is a difficult project for some people to get their hands on. There was a lot of reason for them to be suspicious," Kellogg said. "All of things that will go on in there are hard to figure out and bankers don't keep their jobs if they make bad loans.

"The ballpark figure we think we'll finally put into this is really $1.3 million, that's a lot less than what we thought, but that's still a lot of money. It's a novel thought to make that money back, but the goal right now is to pay back the bank. This is a long-term investment."

Extreme Makeover:

Theater Edition

Then came the hard part: Taking apart the theater and creating a new space for a wedding hall.

The grand old Fox had been "twinned" in the winter of 1982. The owners of the Fox at the time, Mann Theaters, saw that the balcony was no longer the place where young couples sneaked a first kiss.

Instead, the balcony, which had always been smoker friendly, was being used for consumption of illegal smoking materials and decided to cut that out by adding a second screen.

With Van Doren in charge of the remodeling, the first job to makeover the Fox was knocking out the false floors and walls to once again expose the balcony to the main floor. Stiff yellow drapes installed in both theaters in the twinning were removed to bring back the original wall treatments that included paintings of western scenes.

The seats were all removed and given to the local school district for use in the auditorium where the high school hosts their annual musical. Asbestos insulation was removed.

The Fox was unique because it had a "cry room" in the back of the main floor, where parents with small children could go and still enjoy a movie while not disturbing other patrons. Restrooms were built in the cry room space to meet federal law, since the other facilities were located on a landing leading to the balcony.

The concession stand was remade into a bar, with the lobby given a look akin to it's '50s upbringing. An office and sound booth were built into the back of the auditorium, while the old office was transformed into a cigar bar.

The old movie screen was replaced with one that can be rolled up, exposing a stage that can be used by bands and comedians. The sloping auditorium floor was tiered for table seating while the balcony has seats in rows. Dance floors were installed in the area in front of the stage and at the back of the balcony.

Changes for catering

A catering kitchen was installed behind the concession stand. The caterer located in the former hospital now holds the contract for the Fox Pavilion, as the theater is now called. The caterer prepares the food in a vastly expanded kitchen at what's called Hadley Center, and then trucks the food six blocks to the Fox Pavilion.

"We did the design work as we went along with the demolition and construction," Van Doren said. "Our architect, Spec Woods, was kept very busy because there was something new that came along every day, from the heating and air conditioning to the concrete work."

Although the building is permitted to hold more people, it's planned that 450 people can fit comfortably in the remodeled "great hall," or lower floor of the transformed movie house.

One of the biggest expenses was the installation of a new lighting and sound system. Satellite dishes were installed on the roof to bring in audio and video conferencing. A high definition projection system can be used for slide shows, PowerPoint presentations and crystal-clear reception of sporting events, which Kellogg predicts will be a real drawing card on Sundays after those Saturday weddings.

"I can see us having parties for The Masters or the Super Bowl or even the Final Four," Kellogg said. "With the communications systems we have we'll be able to feed in away games from all over. We can use it for reunions and other parties, too."

A job creator

Besides it being a nice addition to the downtown area, one other benefit to the makeover of the Fox is the creation of new jobs in the community.

"Right now, we have about 25 people working on this," Kellogg said. "When wedding season kicks in, we'll likely double that."

Just seven months after Kellogg submitted the winning bid, the Fox Pavilion opened to rave reviews with a '50s dance. Much of the crowd was dressed in leather jackets and poodle skirts. The next day, football fans turned out for foot-long chilidogs to watch a major NFL matchup on the high-definition big screen.

For Kellogg and Van Doren, the initial success of this redevelopment project proved their hopes realized and created this piece of advice for others who see small town Main Streets as dying out.

"There needs to be more enthusiasm out there on the part of people who would be afraid of asking for a loan to start businesses in these downtown type areas," Kellogg said.

"I simply saw an opportunity here to help the community and aid in its redevelopment. We had let some things downtown slip through the cracks, but it's on the move again. When you have this success, it's encourages other people and them--especially bankers--enthusiasm to try other things."

His advice to those who might have a dream of bringing back an old building on their Main Street is to just ask.

"There are places like local economic development commissions, small business centers, state departments of commerce, all sorts of places where you can turn to," Kellogg said.

"Above all, know what your community needs, especially in the retail area, know it's going to be hard work to get started, and then meet the need. It just takes fools like us to make them work."

Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com.

Date: 11/30/06

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