Plans are in the works to turn the former Plaza movie theater into the centerpiece for downtown Durant.
The old movie theater on North Third Avenue currently houses the District Attorney’s Office and county commissioners voted in a recent meeting to donate it to Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
The D.A.’s Office will be moving into the Courthouse Annex and a new building for county offices is going to be constructed at Fifth and Beech. County offices may temporarily move into the Boys & Girls Club until the new building is completed.
The Plaza was opened in 1936 by T. Miller Davidge. It’s final showing was “Rocky V” on Jan. 6, 1991. The building was once owned by businessman Allen Wheeler until being donated to the county.
Southeastern President Thomas Newsom spoke about it during a recent meeting of the Durant Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. Newsom said that through Imagine Durant, Bryan County, the City of Durant, Choctaw Nation, Southeastern and the Boys & Girls Club, pieces have been put together to make the Plaza theater project become a reality. The idea is to bring more visitors to the downtown which will generate more tax revenue to fund infrastructure and continuing to move the community forward.
“So, we’ve been talking for years about the fact that the Plaza theater would be a great venue much like the one in Atoka now, much like the one we got in Tishomingo,” Newsom said. “We’ve got new venues coming to Lake Texoma and we really need a destination, a tourist attraction for downtown Durant.
“Our idea was to take the Plaza theater and restore it in a way that it could be a venue, a restaurant, a 365-day a year operation to bring more foot traffic down to Durant.”
Newsom said everyone put their heads together for a plan to move the District Attorney’s Office out of the Plaza with the property then being deeded over to the university.
“Because the university is a state agency, it’s very easy for that transfer of property to take place,” Newsom said. “The university has the ability through contractual relationships like we have with our food service vendor, with our book store and some other third parties. We could then be the owner and then go out and find a tenant for that space that could potentially bring in the capital and the resources to renovate it and make it what we want it to be, that is to generate our revenue for the city.”
Newsom noted the biggest challenge was finding a place for the District Attorney’s Office.
“The District Attorney’s Offi ce would then move into the current county annex because it’s set up with a courtroom space and we need to try go get this done quickly because of all the growth around,” Newsom said.
The Boys & Girls Club is located in the former middle school and Newsom said there is a significant amount of space available but it needs renovating. Renovating it for temporary use would also provide more space for the Boys & Girls Club to grow.
“Imagine Durant has some funds that they’re going to use to help with that renovation to eventually move the D.A.’s Offi ce, so that can start the first domino to fall,” Newsom said. “It’s exciting for me because one, I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel of where we want to be and the vision of the theater and the downtown area, but it also provides, when it’s all said and done, about twice the space the Boys & Girls Club currently has for them to use for all of their programs.”
Newsom said the Boys & Girls Club serves more than 100,000 meals to children and they serve thousands of children every week through their programs.
“That’s just a great story to tell because that’s a school that many of you in this room may have attended,” Newsom said. “The school district, when their use was done with it, they turned it over to the Boys & Girls Club and now, a group of us are going to collectively go in and help them renovate and grow that program so that building that served this community for years and years and years will continue to serve the community for years and years and years. It’s part of the catalyst for us growing our downtown and creating a space downtown that again, could help us support the future of Durant and Bryan County.”
According to Newsom, the vision is for it to become a venue like Reba’s in Atoka or Blake’s in Tishomingo or a dinner performance hall like ones in Dallas.
“It’s really going to depend on these conversations that we have with people that have the means and want to invest in downtown Durant,” Newsom said. “We’ve already had some preliminary conversations but we can’t really have those conversations until we get the building and turn it over to the university, so the university can sit down and start having this kind of discussion.”
