Leaky roof, a ceiling ‘cave in’ and mold: Latest sad chapter for Fresno’s oldest theater | Opinion
Fresno’s oldest existing movie house is looking pretty forlorn these days: broken windows and doors, graffiti spray-painted on the side of the building visible from the street and plywood covering a front entrance secured by two chained padlocks.
Outside Hardy’s Theater, there’s no sign of construction fences or any sort of renovations that became the subject of so much consternation a little while back. No sign of anyone at all.
And according to the property owner next door, the inside of the historically listed building at 944 Van Ness is in equally bad shape following a partial roof collapse.
“Water everywhere, stuff tore up, piles of Sheetrock sitting there all molding and mildewing,” said Tom Ethridge, owner of the downtown Fresno shop Auto Pawn. “And the ceiling they were told to save? That all caved in. It got saturated with water and fell in.”
Upon hearing that, my jaw fell open. Even though I should no longer be surprised by stories of old Fresno landmarks getting abused. Either purposefully or by neglect.
The last time I wrote about Hardy’s Theater was in August 2021, when it was revealed that city planners, in January of that year, issued a demolition permit for interior renovations to its new owner (the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) without informing the Historic Preservation Commission or in-house historic preservation specialist.
On top of that, the demo permit was issued pending a building inspection by city code enforcers that never actually took place.
During the seven months that passed before anyone raised an eyebrow, large sections of the theater’s interior were gutted. The entire balcony level was torn out — some 1,000 seats — to make space for living quarters, along with plaster from the walls, original light fixtures and ornamental work. All that remained was the original stage.
In the mini uproar that ensued, the owners were required to restore certain historic elements and adhere to strict requirements before starting any exterior work. (Universal Church initially sought to replace “Hardy’s” on the 1930s-era marquee along Van Ness with its own name.)
Construction on the 106-year-old building continued until October of 2022 before coming to an abrupt halt, according to the pawn shop owner next door.
“They had scaffolding front and back,” Ethridge said. “They pulled it out and left.”
Why? Ethridge says the church stopped paying DWD Builders, the Los Angeles-based firm in charge of the renovations. Sure enough, the website levelset.com lists three active liens on the property filed by subcontractors against Universal Church and DWD Builders with a reported total value of $86,667.27.
Phone calls and text messages sent to local church officials were not returned. Nor did I have any luck reaching Terrence Pearson, the project manager for DWD Builders, despite leaving multiple messages.
Moldy odor from historic theater
Ethridge, however, was eager to talk. Gruff in both appearance and manner of speech, the 70-year-old Fresno native has fond memories of seeing movies at Hardy’s as a child.
These days, however, he has come to regard the building next door as a nuisance.
“You know how when someone’s in there?” Ethridge asked. “They open their doors and the smell (of mold) comes into my building. That’s also how I know when people break in. I smell that smell.”
Ethridge told me that part of the Hardy’s Theater roof that had not been properly winterized leaked during one of the March storms, causing the interior damage. He stepped inside the main theater “three weeks ago” and took a look for himself when church officials left open the front door.
“The Sheetrock and everything else they put up are all junk,” Ethridge said, punctuating his words with a pfft sound. “They have to cut it all out and start over. …
“They finally tarped the roof before this last storm. But all the other storms, it just sat there with big open holes. They tarped it, kind of. But you can’t use visqueen (plastic) to stop these winds we’ve been having. You’ve got to tarp it with real tarps.”
Besides damage from Mother Nature, Ethridge said vandals and taggers began targeting the Hardy’s Theater in recent months in addition to the vacant Fink & Skopp building across the street with its distinctive brick archways.
“The vandalism has gotten worse, the graffiti, everything,” he added. “When they start seeing empty buildings, they start coming.”
City officials, including District 3 Councilmember Miguel Arias, appear to be in the dark about the recent damage to Hardy’s Theater. (Arias was aware construction had stopped.) I suspect inquiries will be made now.
Too late, once again, for this forlorn Fresno landmark.
This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 10:22 AM.
