Mercer assumes ownership of 129-year-old downtown theatre

Macon’s historic Capitol Theatre —  built as a bank in 1897, converted into a cinema house two years after the start of World War I and most recently operated as a performance venue — has changed hands once again.

Mercer University has purchased the building on Second Street from the Moonhanger Group, a local restaurant and catering company owned by Wes Griffith.

Griffith, whose company has operated the theatre for a dozen years, said running the Capitol was “a labor of love” for a long time” that “was never never expected to be this ‘cash cow’ or anything like that.”

Though Griffith enjoyed running the venue, it became more challenging after the pandemic because “the music industry changed a little bit,” he said. Adding to that challenge was the loss of revenue that came after sponsors, who had naming rights to the theatre, dropped off. 

Still, he said, “I’m really proud of what I was able to do.”

Mercer paid $329,000 for the building on Dec. 31, according to court records. It also bought a green room lounge that abuts the rear of the building for $21,000 on Jan. 9. The university announced Friday evening that it secured a multi-year naming sponsorship from Robins Financial Credit Union, dubbing the venue The Robins Financial Theatre.

Mercer spokesperson and Chief of Staff Larry Brumley told The Melody that Griffith “was willing to arrange a bargain sale, which allowed the university to acquire the theatre for far less than its appraised value.”

NewTown Macon pitched the idea to former university President Bill Underwood, who made the decision to purchase the theatre before President Penny Elkins took the university’s helm Jan. 1, Brumley said. 

“Part of their pitch was that the Capitol is an important downtown entertainment-and-arts venue and that if it closed it would not be a good thing for the community,” Brumley said.

Unlike most properties owned by the university, Brumley said the theatre will remain on the tax rolls.

Mercer’s Director of arts marketing Julia Morrison, who also manages the county-owned Piedmont Grand Opera House for Mercer University, said the size and proximity of the theatre was one reason the school was interested in buying it. 

“We already are going to be moving over some jazz ensemble concerts next year to the Capitol theatre,” she said, adding that the university’s Fickling Hall has limited seating capacity and live performances sometimes sell out. 

In addition to luring in artists to perform at the theatre and hosting university ensembles, Morrison said the venue also will be used to teach students about the back-end of live production work. 

“We also envision more opportunities for students to really have a practical space, an almost lab-type space for live sounds to be able to learn more about the music business,” Morrison said. “There’s a lot of plans in place, even plans to collaborate with a couple of classes in the business school as well.” 

History

The Capitol theatre was constructed in 1897 as a bank. In 1916, after the building was converted to a movie house with Arabian-style decoration, it showed silent movies and, later, technicolored films. 

The theatre closed in 1976 after more than a year of cash-flow issues. Its owners attributed to business lost to outlying cinemas such as the Westgate Theater, Riverside Drive-In and Forty-One Drive-In, according to newspaper archives.

In 2003, the theatre was purchased for $175,000 by NewTown Macon, a downtown-boosting nonprofit that Mercer University helped establish five years earlier. NewTown Macon leased the theatre for $1 per year to another nonprofit called Capitol Theatre Holdings LLC, headed by Piedmont Construction founder David Thompson, Macon contractor Tony Long, Macon architect Gene Dunwody and Griffith.  

Following extensive renovations, the venue reopened on Jan. 18, 2006. A ceremony celebrating the resurrection of the historic theatre drew a crowd of about 500 people. 

“We took on some debt when we opened it,” Griffith said of the now-dissolved Capitol nonprofit. “Years later, that kind of came back to bite us with the economy and everything.”

In 2014, Capitol Theatre Holdings sold the building to the Macon-Bibb County Urban Development Authority for $460,000. Griffith said the sale helped “clear out some of that debt,” but the local authority indicated it did not want to own the building. It had Moonhanger manage it.

“That was when I stepped up,” Griffith said. “So, I entered a lease with a purchase option with them.”

In 2018, Griffith’s company, the Moonhanger Group, opted to buy the property from the authority for $380,777. 

Griffith said the Moonhanger Group sold more than 150,000 tickets over the dozen years it operated the theatre.

Some of the most popular shows included: Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Luke Combs, Jason Isbell, Gregg Allman, Cee Lo Green, Grace Potter, Indigo Girls, The Revivalists, Kansas, Ben Folds, Travis Tritt, Blues Traveler, Dickey Betts, Gov’t Mule, The Drive By Truckers, Wet Willie and Chuck Leavell.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount Mercer paid for the building. The figure has been corrected.