The restoration of the Historic Centralia Fox Theatre has seen significant progress in recent years, but the project is once again hitting a wall, this time due to insufficient funding.
Members of the Historic Fox Theatre Board of Directors, along with the construction contractor, provided an update to the Centralia City Council during its meeting Tuesday night regarding the next steps.
Andrew Christensen, president and owner of Construct, Inc., the contractor with the restoration project since 2022, told the council that over the past three and a half years, about $700,000 of work has been done on the Fox Theatre.
However, the project cannot be fully completed until more funding is acquired.
“We are running short on the amount of resources that are available currently, so we are working fairly slowly currently,” Christensen said, adding that the project is currently about 50% funded. He said to get the building’s structure complete with paint on the walls but no seating, it would be about $1.8 million.
Todd Rayan, vice president of the Historic Fox Theatre Board of Directors, told the council that the board has previously obtained grants and donations but that the group is currently “at a standstill” because of a gap in funding.
“We have available to us historic tax credit grants, which allow us to sell historic tax credits to people who will purchase them. But that requires us to get to a certificate of occupancy,” Rayan said. “That’s where we’re at now. At this point, we have exhausted every avenue that we have to obtain additional funding. It’s about $600,000 or $800,000 we would need, maybe a little bit more, to leverage about $600,000 or $800,000 in tax credits. Once we do that, then we qualify for additional historic preservation grants for a little over $500,000. We qualify for about $500,000 in Murdock grants, which are operational grants. And, of course, once we get to the point where we have the certificate of occupancy, then we can qualify for some New Market Tax Credits.”
Joe Clark, president of the board, clarified that work needed for a certificate of occupancy would cost about $1.6 million and would allow the Fox Theatre to host events in the building. He gave examples of what significant amounts of funding could do for the project.
“If you look at a million dollars and what a million dollars does for us today, it incorporates the ability to leverage the $650,000 in tax credits. That takes us to $1.6 million,” Clark said. “It incorporates the historic preservation society about $512,000. Now we’re at $2.1 million. [If we get] the Murdock grant of $500,000, now we’re at $2.7 million. [If we get] $1.5 million in New Market grants, now we’re at $4.2 million. At $4.2 million, we’re almost done with the theater.”
Completed work includes exterior improvements such as brickwork, seismic retrofitting and roofing. The entire building has been re-wired, ducted, plumbed, regraded for accessibility, fitted with fire suppression systems, and more.
According to the Fox Theatre’s January 2026 newsletter, the once-uninhabitable theater is now fully accessible and code-compliant with infrastructure designed to “entertain for the next 100 years.” A new green room was constructed under the stage, and the entire floor of the building was removed and regraded for easier access. Americans With Disabilities Act-accessible bathrooms, aisles and ramps were installed, and an elevator to the stage and to the green room are being installed. The Rotary Mezzanine Lounge and bathrooms have been completed, and the ticket booth and entry plaza are finished. The original lighting fixtures and woodwork have been removed and carefully stored for future restoration and reinstallation.
Christensen added that the contractors completed a fire sprinkler system and installed a new fire alarm system, as well as completed designs for the electrical system and theater system, including rigging, sound and lighting. However, he said leasing or renting such systems may be an option as purchasing them is costly.
According to Rayan, the group is not done looking for grants, but he acknowledged that “we don’t really have anywhere else available to us at this point to find that money.” The restoration group wrote in the newsletter that it was unable to secure necessary grant funding or municipal support in 2024 to leverage its existing historic tax credits. It said donations will not be its primary focus through the remainder of this phase.
Clark said the group is looking for investments to not only reach the certificate of occupancy but to accomplish “the dream of everybody in this room, which is to have a grand theater downtown.”
Christensen said much progress has been made with the funding the contractor and the restoration group has received, noting that the building was once a three-screen movie theater before the project began and has been converted back to its original intent as a performing arts center. In total, about $4 million has been spent since the on-and-off construction began in 2008, Clark said. The Centralia Fox Theatre first opened in September 1930 as a member of the Fox West Coast Theatre chain and closed in the 1990s.
Councilor Kelly Smith Johnston told the board and Christensen that through her conversations with any potential funders, she learned that the current climate does not create available funding for arts. She and Deputy Mayor Chris Brewer mentioned the positive energy brought about by community members on social media following the Fox Theatre’s recent updates on social media.
“The economic climate is a little bit down right now, but at the same time, I just look to the United Learning Center. We just passed the school levy. We’ve got some momentum,” Brewer said. “We’ve got some community energy that I think we can capture, and I think this can be wrapped right up along with it.”
To view the full newsletter from the Fox Theatre, visit https://tinyurl.com/3448ncev.
