Scattered trails of popcorn still litter the Garland Theater's dark and empty aisles, remnants of the final moments before a new year — and a new act — for the historic Spokane venue unfolds.
In the vacant parking lot outside, a man in an orange safety vest moves a surveying tripod from one corner to the other as zippy traffic on North Monroe Street bounces over the tire-rutted intersection. Instead of movie times on the towering, neon-lit marquee, there's this message: "To be continued" and "Thank you Spokane."
Inside, Chris Bovey lifts a retractable measuring tape over his head toward the lobby's neon-purple illuminated ceiling. Past him and the propped-open doors of the theater's attached bar, Bon Bon, Jasmine Barnes is unloading dozens of liquor bottles onto the serpentine bar top for cleaning and inventory. Soon joining them to take stock of all that needs to be added to a growing to-do list before the Garland can reopen — ideally next month — is Tyler Arnold, who completes the trio who've just become the theater's latest operators.
The three share a grand vision to revitalize the 78-year-old, single-screen theater and entice community members to leave the comfort of their couches at home. Their plans include bringing back weekly $1 movies geared toward families, themed events like last year's sold-out Return of the Jedi 40th anniversary screening, and sprucing up the place to give it more of a special, nostalgic feel. They'll continue to show second-run movies with a focus on titles more likely to draw a crowd versus showing every single release, along with throwback screenings of popular older movies.
Bovey, whose workshop and store Vintage Print + Neon is just a couple doors down, will restore and add to the Garland's neon lights inside and out, and paint retro, movie-inspired murals on the walls. Arnold, who also owns the Jedi Alliance arcade and pop culture museum in Spokane Valley, wants to display some of his extensive movie prop collection in the lobby, including a guitar used in the locally-shot film Dreamin' Wild. And Barnes, who's worked at the theater for the past decade and as its general manager since 2020, envisions revamping Bon Bon's menu, hosting more special events, and partnering with other businesses in the district to boost activity in the neighborhood.
"I think it's going to be something very unique and special to Spokane that you can't find anywhere else," Bovey says. "It'll give a lot of people a reason to come back to the theater, because I would hear from people, 'I haven't been to the theater in 20 years.' So hopefully people come back and they say 'Wow, we've gotta show other people, we've gotta tell other people.'"
Due to a lag in acquiring business licenses and permits, the Garland will remain closed for six to eight weeks, hopefully reopening by mid-February. In the meantime, improvements are already underway.
The old theater's new stewards also include the Garland property's owner, local real estate developer Jordan Tampien of 4 Degrees Real Estate, who's leasing the building and existing equipment inside to Bovey, Barnes and Arnold. In December, Tampien bought the theater from longtime owner Katherine Fritchie for $1.8 million.
Fritchie operated the Garland for nearly 25 years, since 1999. She bought the building a few years later, in 2002, and for the past several years had been looking for the right buyer.
"I'm at a point where I feel like I've really given it a good foundation and I've done what I can for it," Fritchie says. "I feel honored to have done it, but I think it needs somebody younger to take over."
Tampien has plenty of experience owning and restoring historic buildings, including the former Watts Automotive garage that now houses Brick West Brewing Co. on downtown's West End, the nearby Lolo Lofts (he was recently recognized by Spokane Preservation Advocates with an award for that work), and a new project to renovate the Peyton Building next to the STA Plaza into apartments.
He has big plans at the Garland, too, including an estimated $500,000 in facade improvements to the building, which has become a bit shabby in places with peeling paint and other small defects. The biggest change, however, is his plans to build a 44-unit, four-story apartment building directly behind the theater, taking up about a third of the existing parking lot.
"This is the only way I know how to make a project like this sustainable," Tampien says. "I was able to offer really low rent for operating the theater because we were able to add some more revenue generation."
Construction of the apartments — a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom units with market-rate rents — is expected to begin in this spring or early summer, he says. Parking for residents and the theater will remain available in the northeast corner of the block with about 80 spots, in addition to street parking in the Garland District.
The theater's ownership trio also hope to work with nearby businesses on parking sharing agreements for events at the Garland held after normal business hours.
The new apartments, Tampien says, "will give a more dramatic feel as you're coming down Monroe. And for the people living there, we thought we'd activate some of the central area with a courtyard and we're hoping to have space for outdoor movies on the wall, and add a new promenade to get to the front of the theater," in place of the narrow sidewalk between the building and Monroe Street.
"I think combined, this should make this a pretty sustainable project," he says. "We're going to sponsor things like dollar movie nights and $3 popcorn."
Tampien has had his eye on the Garland for a while and first talked to Fritchie about buying it in mid-2022.
"When it was first listed, I was like, oh cool," he says. "And honestly, [I thought] if the wrong person gets it that is not going to be a good scenario."
When he reached out to Fritchie again in mid-2023 about buying the theater, she declined.
At the time, she was in the middle of negotiating a plan to effectively give the theater business to Bovey and Arnold — who, by running the business, would lease the building from Fritchie — after announcing last March that the Garland was in danger of permanently closing.
Bovey first got involved after launching a "Save the Garland" campaign via GoFundMe to help stabilize the theater. So far, the effort has raised nearly $50,000, which is still earmarked to buy a new popcorn machine, backup projector, new speakers and other equipment.
Yet by late September, negotiations between Fritchie, Bovey and Arnold had soured. Arnold planned to sue Fritchie for what he says was a breach of contract, having spent months waiting for her to hand over the theater. During that time he'd quit his job as a tattoo artist to focus on securing grants for improvements to the theater and other projects related to the planned takeover.
All summer and fall, meanwhile, Bovey was questioned by donors to the "Save the Garland" campaign, wondering if their money was ever going to actually support the theater's future.
For her part, Fritchie asserts that no formal contract to transfer the theater's operations to Bovey and Arnold had ever occurred — only earnest discussions about the terms had taken place.
By Oct. 19, Tampien sent Fritchie another offer to buy the Garland. While he sought to save the historic theater from permanent closure at the least, and demolition at the worst, he also didn't want to operate a movie theater, so he turned back to Bovey and Arnold, who brought along Barnes.
When the theater's sale was finally completed on Dec. 15, Bovey and Arnold's long-envisioned dreams could finally begin taking shape.
Barnes will remain the Garland's general manager, focusing on day-to-day operations of the theater and Bon Bon. Bovey will be the theater's creative director, and he'll oversee branding, social media and helping plan events. (Bovey was the Inlander's art director from 2006 to 2016.) Arnold is the cinema's new CEO, doing a bit of everything to steer the whole operation. The trio plan to transform the business into an official nonprofit entity.
Since its debut in 1945, on the day before Thanksgiving, the Garland Theater has gone through several periods of boom and bust.
The Garland was designed by the Spokane architectural firm Funk, Molander & Johnson in the streamline moderne style, a branch of art deco with futuristic and aerodynamic elements. The theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 and Spokane's local historic registry in 2015.
The Nov. 22, 1945, edition of the Spokane Daily Chronicle published a glowing review of the theater's opening night showing of the hockey and ice skating-themed musical comedy It's a Pleasure starring Sonja Henie.
"Throngs of people filled the Garland theater area last night at Garland and Monroe for the gala opening of Spokane's newest theater," the review said. "Modern in every detail, the blue and wine auditorium drew particular comment on the continental seating and extra large spacing between rows. Germicidal lamps on the walls keep the air purified. The lobby was lined with baskets of flowers."
Throughout the next seven-plus decades, not much inside the auditorium has changed, although roomier seats have trimmed capacity from more than 900 to around 600. Many original elements remain in the lobby, like two pillars covered in sparkling, violet-hued glass tiles. Where the concessions counter and kitchen currently sit was once an elegant, recessed seating area with plush furnishings. The Garland's original concessions counter was located where Bon Bon is, and the curved walls of the circular lobby were wrapped in luxurious wood paneling that's long since been removed. A connected single-story space (now Kiss and Makeup salon) extending out from the building's east side near the ticket booth was once a gift shop selling movie soundtrack records and other goods.
The Garland has had numerous owners over the decades, and once closed for a few years from May 1986 to late 1988, after which co-owner Don Clifton made it Spokane's first $1 theater. On the double bill for reopening night, Nov. 18, was Big Top Pee-wee and Crocodile Dundee II.
In early 1977, the theater's out-of-town owners came under fire for showing two X-rated movies, a choice that appears to be a one-off decision based on historical newspaper records. Residents immediately took action, gathering 1,400 signatures from neighbors in the surrounding North Hill neighborhood asking the theater to cease such screenings. (One other similar incident involved a 1972 showing of A Clockwork Orange.)
Several months later in 1977, the Garland briefly returned to showing pornographic films, but there's a twist. The private screening was for the jury of an obscenity trial involving one of the city's adult-only movie houses, the Dishman Theater on East Sprague Avenue.
In 1999, Fritchie and her then-husband bought the business from Clifton.
"I had been looking for a business for a couple years, and it was when you would look for businesses in the Spokesman-Review ads," she recalls. "We found it and it seemed like it would be a good fit, something that we could do with our kids and to support the community."
Fritchie, who's restored several other historic residential properties in the area, opened Bon Bon in 2010. She also installed new seats, carpet and a digital projector in 2013. That fall, the Garland got a liquor license allowing beer and wine to be sold and consumed inside the auditorium.
For at least one of the Garland's new owners, taking over the theater comes full circle.
In the summer of 1998, when he was 18, Bovey got his first job at the theater.
"I worked the ticket booth and concessions, and cleaned the auditorium," he says. "It was a fun job — an awesome job — and I made so many friends and memories when I worked here. It was probably my favorite job that I've ever had."
Arnold's earliest memories of the theater go back to 1988, after he turned 10 and could go to the theater unaccompanied. He and his cousin who lived nearby would walk to the Garland with a couple of bucks each in their pockets.
"Any chance we got we would come here and it was a dollar to get in, and endless popcorn was $3.24 after tax," he recalls. "It was like, man, we just got keys to the castle, and at the time, the Garland was playing weird movies, like UHF [starring Weird Al Yankovic] and Drop Dead Fred."
For Barnes, staying at the Garland for this next chapter was also easy to say yes to.
"It just really does feel like a community here," she says, "I think probably the most important thing is just seeing kids be able to go to their first movie here."
"I hear story after story about how this theater has impacted generations," Bovey chimes in. "People have gotten proposed to here, had their first dates here — there are so many generations of Spokanites that this place has touched."
"A lot of lessons can be learned from a movie," Arnold adds. "And one thing that I love most, which comes full circle, is, like The Goonies, you see these kids and they're the heroes. And here we are — Goonies — and we get to be the heroes. So it's awesome. I just love that idea." ♦
