Creative Contractors – a well-known Tampa construction company – is restoring and modernizing the historic Tampa Theatre, that atmospheric palace of Mediterranean fantasy: A lobby that opens onto a synthetic starry sky, and a towering balconied auditorium mimicking a moonlit courtyard, complete with arches, statuary and exotic birds.
The $13.5 million project – part of a $30 million capital investment campaign called Second Century – arrives poignantly in the theatre’s centennial year. The Tampa Theatre first opened in October 1926. Restoration will shutter the main auditorium from March 10 through September – a hard completion deadline ahead of the 100-year celebration – though programming will continue next door in the micro-cinema.
Inside, Creative Contractors is delivering AV upgrades, a refreshed concessions area, a new stage truss system and enhanced theatrical lighting to better support both live performances and film. A specialty plaster team is restoring the main room (the Duncan Auditorium) to its original grandeur. On the exterior, signage will receive new paint and upgraded lighting, and the Florida Avenue wing is being transformed.
The second and third floors on that side will become new education and archive spaces aligned with Tampa Theatre’s mission of film education and preservation. The first floor will see new restrooms, and a new elevator will improve accessibility throughout the building. Much-needed safety features are also part of the modernization – and yes, the concession station is getting attention too.
Josh Bomstein, president and CEO of Creative Contractors, is spearheading the effort, though “spearheading” might be too brash – as he put it, “every brush stroke is exact.”
This is not Bomstein’s first foray with the Tampa Theatre. His team previously replaced all the seating – custom designs based on the originals – and restored the ornate lobby.
Look closely at the Mediterranean-style beams on the second floor and you’ll see gargoyles and, well, scary baby faces carved and painted into the wood.
“We are experts at working with scary babies,” Bomstein laughed, referring to the effort it takes to revitalize those details by the team of painters and plaster artists. He said, “Everything is getting botox.”
Asked what sets a historic building like the Tampa Theatre apart from other projects, Bomstein shrugged off the romance. “Funny thing is, pretty much everything we work on here in Tampa is 100 years old.” Meaning, this is familiar territory – though he works on modern projects as well. Still, he said, the team studies the original building techniques so they can be extra careful.
“We basically take the Hippocratic oath: I promise I will do no harm to this building,” he said, adding that there is no greater honor than working on one of Tampa’s most treasured landmarks.
Though European in aesthetic – down to the typography on the hanging metal bathroom signage – the theatre’s original architect, Chicago-based John Eberson, said his atmospheric style was inspired by wintering in Florida: Italian gardens, Spanish patios and the exotic birds of Miami mornings.
As an homage to its silent-film roots, the Mighty Wurlitzer organ is still played, by musician-in-residence Steven Ball and volunteers from the Central Florida Theatre Organ Society. The organ was sold off and sat silent somewhere else for decades after “talkies” – movies with sound – took over, until it was recovered and restored in the 1980s.
The organ, the stage, the lights, the details, the decades – taken together, Tampa Theatre remains, in the words of CEO John Bell, “a source of pride in the community.”
“It’s a catalyst for future development,” Bell said, noting that although the theater nearly faced demolition in 1973, the community rallied to save it. Since then, an estimated $300 million has been invested in the surrounding block – an effect of The Tampa Theatre’s anchoring power.
The renovation’s new education and archive spaces will allow Tampa Theatre to expand programming. The second and third floors along Florida Avenue are being converted for that purpose.
“We’re partnering with the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida for numerous things like micro-credentialing classes for industry professionals that need those certifications,” Bell said. Film appreciation classes and camps for children and adults are also in the works.
Or, as Bomstein put it, regarding the lobby’s twinkling ceiling: “Over time, many of the stars in the ceiling have faded. We are going to magnify their illumination.”
