Wyandotte Theater demolition begins this week

Allow me to introduce you two. Wrecking ball, this is the Wyandotte Theater. Wyandotte Theater, this is the wrecking ball.

These two probably won't be formally introduced like this, but they will make each other's acquaintance, painfully, quite soon. Demolition of the old Wyandotte Theater is set to begin in the first full week of August and finished before the end of the month.

The city is razing the old downtown theater at the corner of First and Elm streets in the hopes a cleared site will prompt new development there. A request for proposals on what to build on the site will be put out soon after the theater is leveled. The site will be open to all sorts of proposals, such as a boutique hotel, department store or condos.

Local officials had hoped to reopen the vacant building as a theater again, although concluded that wasn't possible after meeting with entrepreneurs in the theater industry. They said, according to city officials, that a commercial theater needs at least 12 to 15 screens to be viable and the most the Wyandotte Theater could offer was six.

The Art Deco-style theater has been closed for 17 years and is completely gutted. It was the first multiple-screen theater in Michigan when it opened in 1936. The city bought the theater earlier this year for $802,600.