The historic Forest Theatre is getting new life as a live music venue. The Dallas Landmark Commission enthusiastically endorsed plans to renovate and rebrand the 1949 building after developers Kennedy Barnes and Ward White gave a brief presentation.
The 1,500-seat Forest Theatre has served as a cinema, a club, a concert hall and even a temporary synagogue in the mid-1950s, according to the Dallas Morning News. In the mid-1960s Ike & Tina Turner played on stage; in the 1980s, Prince, The Roots and Dave Chappelle. It's now known as the “Black Forest” and is owned by performer Erykah Badu.
Commissioners loved the plan to renovate the theater and revive the area. They expressed hopes that the new project would breathe life into a dilapidated, underused space.
Despite the encouragement, there is still much work to be done. The developers need to find investors, raise money, and convince the National Park Service (which oversees the National Register of Historic Places) to sign off on some changes being considered before the city can officially designate it a historical place.
Barnes told the newspaper that he and his partner have the building under contract and will likely close on it at the end of the month.Groundbreaking won’t happen until the end of the year or Q1 2017. [DMN]
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