Lights! Action! Movies! Ballard!
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: The Return of the Bay Theater.
Cue marquee lights! Cue nostalgic music! Enter Denzel Washington!
The historic cinema on Northwest Market Street in Ballard will reopen Friday as the Majestic Bay Theatres after a 16-month, $5 million makeover. The single-screen movie house closed in 1997, folding to competition from multiplexes.
On the marquee now: "Remember the Titans," a based-on-a-true-story football flick starring Washington, and "The Contender," a political drama with Joan Allen and Christian Slater. In its opening week, the Majestic Bay will also screen two classics, "Casablanca" and "Singin' in the Rain."
With its mix of first-run films and classics, the Majestic Bay remains truer to the original intent behind the multiplex - to offer a variety of films - than any theater currently showing "Almost Famous" on six screens.
The compact, three-story movie house retains a classic feel with its granite countertops and rich mahogany paneling. And in a salute to its Salmon Bay surroundings, the theater's decor includes a nautical theme. Gold-rimmed portholes are built into the wooden main doors while glass-blown jellyfish, designed by local artist Doug Hansen, double as light fixtures in the lobby.
"It was built as a neighborhood movie house, and we tried to retain some of the flavor there," says general manager Brent Siewert. "Some parts are similar, but it's much more grand on the inside."
It's pretty grand on the outside, too, with the 26-foot vertical sign spelling out "Majestic" in blazing blue and gold lights.
Inside, the main auditorium boasts modern stadium-style seating for about 300, which is roughly half the size of the average multiplex. The two upstairs auditoriums are cozier, with room for about 100 and 135 people each.
Each theater is equipped with Dolby Digital sound, and the main theater has extended sound capabilities to accommodate films like last year's "The Phantom Menace: Episode I." Concession stands in lobbies upstairs and downstairs are stocked with standard movie-theater fare: popcorn, soda, Junior Mints. And the bathrooms in between auditorium floors are roomy and glowing in soft yellow light.
Not bad for a place that in its later years became a rundown $2 movie house for second-run films. It first opened in 1915 as Ballard's Majestic Theater, where vaudeville stage shows kept audiences entertained between one-reel silent movies. It later became the Roxy, advertising "all talkers" after the innovation of talking films in the late 1920s, then took on the name most Ballardites recognize, the Bay Theater, in 1948. The Bay closed in July 1997.
New owners Ken and Marleen Alhadeff first considered simply refurbishing what was rumored to be the longest continuously running movie theater west of the Mississippi. But rotting wood and general disrepair forced them to tear down the building in June 1999.
The new Majestic Bay will screen first-run movies along with classics here and there, possibly during midnight showings or Saturday matinees. A bonus for classic-film buffs: The theater is equipped to properly show the films on a square screen, thus preserving the tops of actors' heads and their feet.
Siewert expects to attract mostly neighborhood audiences, with standard ticket prices of $8 and $5.
The reopening of the theater is a coup for Ballard, says Beth Williamson Miller of the Ballard Chamber of Commerce.
"It really is a symbol that Ballard is changing and that its demographics are changing," she said. "We think (Ballard) is a pretty special place, and now we have one more thing that makes it unique."
While the Majestic Bay remains considerably smaller than the sprawling multiplexes that buried it three years ago, it wins as the sentimental favorite among locals.
"It's almost as if this is yet one more community meeting place," Miller says. "I imagine that a lot of us will bump into each other there, going to see movies."