Crews are uncovering the theater’s original design as part of a larger downtown restoration project. \n<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 The historic Ritz Theatre in downtown Corpus Christi is one step closer to restoration as crews begin uncovering and restoring the building’s original 1929 colors.<\/p>\n
Leaders of the project say workers are carefully studying layers of paint and plaster throughout the theater to match the colors used when the building opened nearly a century ago.<\/p>\n
“What you see behind me right now is a section of a mockup they’re working on,” The Ritz Theatre’s new Executive Director, Arthur Seago, said. “That dark night sky blue up there, that was one of the original colors from 1929.”<\/p>\n
According to Seago, restoration crews with Evergreen Architectural Arts are repairing damaged medallions, restoring the theater’s original craftsmanship, and testing paints and materials that match the building’s historic look.<\/p>\n
Seago said many of the theater’s current colors are not original.<\/p>\n
“The dark red or maroon behind me right now, that’s not the original color,” Seago said. “There was no red in this building in 1929.”<\/p>\n
The restoration is part of a larger renovation project expected to take several years. Plans include updated bathrooms, elevators, and ADA accessibility improvements through a new annex next to the theater.<\/p>\n
“When this project is finished, this is going to be a grand facility,” Seago said. “It’s going to be an economic boom for downtown.”<\/p>\n
Once completed, the Ritz Theatre is expected to host Broadway-style productions, concerts, comedy shows, movies, weddings, and community events. Project leaders hope construction will be complete before the theater’s 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n
“It’s on an accelerated timeline, and it’ll be done before our 100th anniversary,” Seago said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crews are uncovering the theater’s original design as part of a larger downtown restoration project. CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-312556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}