Entrepreneurial American Community Award
For the community partnership that went into the creation of the Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Center.
The Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Centre in El Paso, TX, once known as The Showplace of the Southwest, stood to be demolished in 1986. The announcement of the demise of this community treasure spurred the El Paso Community Foundation to action, and in March of 2006, twenty years after the building was almost destroyed, the Plaza Theatre will reopen as a major performing arts facility, thanks to the public/private partnership between the Foundation and City of El Paso.
The theatre, built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture in the late 1920's, was once thought to be the largest theatre between Dallas and Los Angeles, and was recognized as the most architecturally grand theatre in El Paso. Its flexibility in being able to present both films and stage shows placed it as the center of entertainment in the city. Unfortunately, with the increasing popularity of television and the decreasing number of people turning to downtown for entertainment, the theatre lost its prominence in the lives of El Paso’s citizens. However, it never lost their hearts. After the announcement of the demolition, the Community Foundation responded with a campaign like none other it has undertaken before. They were able to raise $1 million with only 6 weeks of intense fundraising, enough in the short time span they were given to save the Plaza from the bulldozer.
The El Paso Community Foundation worked on conducting numerous studies of what made performing arts facilities successful around the country, and in 2002 the City of El Paso and the Foundation entered into the largest public/private partnership in the state of Texas, with the City dedicating $15.5 million and the Foundation dedicating $12 million to the renovation. Much like in the past, flexibility remains key to the potential of this performing arts facility through the diverse uses made to benefit the whole El Paso community. In addition to the main theatre, capable of holding 2,100 persons, there will be a small community theatre, a restaurant, meeting spaces, and a rooftop garden. Furthermore, the designers created a new public gathering space that rests in between the Plaza Theatre and the El Paso Museum of Art to add to the vibrancy of the area. Every detail that went into the planning was important; for example, the smaller theatre is designed to have the right number of seats to be accessible to community groups unable to pay high royalty fees on scripts being performed in larger theatres, and the designers worked hard scouring the region to recover original furniture and artifacts that were sold in an auction in the 1970's.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places with a national significance designation, the Plaza Theatre represents both a new and familiar community hub for El Paso. Through the partnership of the El Paso Community Foundation and the City of El Paso, El Paso has recovered an important element of its rich, twentieth-century heritage.