Restoration of historic Uptown venue nearing finish

CHARLOTTE — With six months of work left, the Carolina Theatre finally looks like it’s past any more nasty surprises. If the forecast holds, the $90 million project will open seven years after construction started — at 30% above initial cost estimates.

Talk is cheap; history is not. Or something like that.

Foundation For The Carolinas CEO Cathy Bessant and Sean Seifert, the theater’s project manager, led reporters on a tour this week of the construction site. Their mission: Letting people know the restoration is making progress and heading for the finish line.

Foundation For The Carolinas bought the dilapidated theater from city government for $1 in 2013. Bessant quipped that the foundation overpaid.

She inherited the restoration upon taking the reins as CEO in January. Her predecessor, Michael Marsicano, took on the ambitious project at a time when little of the historic movie theater and performance center remained.

What was left was in bad shape, ignored for decades after the theater closed in 1978.

It opened in 1927 on North Tryon Street. Over the ensuing decades, it hosted hit movies — “The Sound of Music” ran for 79 weeks — as well as performances by Elvis Presley and Bob Hope, among others.

Read more about the project and check out photos of the nearly finished space on CBJ’s website here.

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