On the edge of Over-the-Rhine, a renaissance is budding. At its center is a former theater, where vaudeville performers of the early 20th century once entertained countless audiences. Then came the films, first silent, and then “the talkies,” that filled the auditorium with romance and adventure, imagination and emotion. Now, this space has been empty for decades, the audiences and their laughter, tears and oohs and aahs now mere ghosts in the haunting but beautiful Imperial Theatre.
After sitting vacant for over 20 years, the Imperial is ready for its next act — this time as a community-focused arts and education center, but also much more. The team behind its redevelopment sees it as the anchor that can revitalize and catalyze a largely forgotten neighborhood into a thriving arts district.
Mohawk redux
The Imperial Theatre as it was may be gone, but it hasn’t been forgotten. The building sits in a prominent location, marking the end of Mohawk Place where it intersects with McMicken Avenue. Despite its time-worn appearance — or perhaps because of it — it still catches the eye as you drive or walk past the impressive Art Moderne marquee with faded red block letters, with a regal crown above them.
That eye-catching nature of the Imperial’s, even almost 115 years after it was first built, and its vital location as a nexus between core Cincinnati neighborhoods like Over-the-Rhine, the West End, CUF and Camp Washington, is part of what drew developer Julie Fay to it.
“It has that high visibility. Everybody knows it,” Fay explains as we stand in the Imperial’s empty auditorium that’s practically frozen in time, with the original theater seats arranged in front of us and the original vaudeville structure still on stage; an invisible audience waiting for the show to go on. “It’s amazing how many people know the building and always wondered what was inside.”
Like many buildings in this area, the Imperial is in need of TLC. But Fay and the rest of the Mohawk Neighborhood Community Development Corp see its potential as the crown jewel of the neighborhood, and the perfect start in reviving a part of Over-the-Rhine that was once a bustling business and brewery district.
When Cincinnati was still in its infancy, this area was a separate village called Mohawk. Mohawk was annexed to the city of Cincinnati around 1849 and flourished thanks to its prime location along the Miami and Erie Canal. From the front of the Imperial Theatre, you can look down Mohawk Place and see Central Parkway. That would’ve still been the canal when the theater was built in 1912.
“With this crossing of the canal and the tightness of the canal and the hillside, this became the business district,” Fay says. “And that’s what the Mohawk Neighborhood Community Development Corp is working on to bring this back first. We had ‘live, worship, work, play and shop’ here, and that’s what we’re trying to bring back.”
For a hopeful arts district that will be developed with a strong sense of community, the Imperial is the place to start. When it opened in 1912, it was a vaudeville theater — a type of entertainment that drew in neighborhood audiences.
“This is one of about eight other theaters that were built around the same time. They seem to be built mainly for the neighborhoods, so each neighborhood had their own space,” says Marta Hyland, the director of theater development and consultant for the Imperial Theater Mohawk Alliance, the nonprofit raising the funds and awareness around rehabilitating the historic theater and building a performing arts and education annex next door.
“From the day it began, the community would gather here to talk about issues of the day: tuberculosis, World War I. Later on, the Republican Men’s Club used to meet here, and then they would do their annual holiday charity party with all of the children in the neighborhood. So, a long history of engaging with the neighborhood, as well as performing for them. We want to continue that.”
As vaudeville faded from popularity, the theater converted into a movie house. A projection room was built; decorative plaster coverings were added to the auditorium’s windows to block out the light that was once needed for the vaudeville performances but not so much for the films; and the theater underwent an Art Moderne makeover, mostly the exterior and the lobby. The detailed work on the front of the theater was scraped off and replaced with porcelain enamel tiles, and the iconic neon marquee was added.
“One of the coolest things they did when they put this marquee on is they centered it on the intersection, not on the building. So even then, they were thinking, ‘OK, how do we best get people in the door?’ Not only flashy lights, but making sure you can see them from all directions,” says Hyland.
The flash will return to the Imperial, as one of the main objectives is to restore the marquee to its former glory. While the rest of the lighting will be LED to help the building earn LEED Silver certification, the marquee will be redone with neon.
As for the programming, Hyland says they plan to be open 363 days a year and they’re remaining open to everything, from live theater, dance and music to film festivals, burlesque, comedy and even the return of vaudeville.
Like it was in the early 1900s, the Imperial will also be a place to gather. There will be spaces available to rent for events and classes, and the lobby will open during the day to the public, offering a space to have a drink, talk to other artists, collaborate and even work on your next big project. Kids are also welcome to stop by, work on homework and enjoy a space to relax. Hyland also hopes they will be able to offer tours of the theater and be a satellite location for other theaters that may have had a show sell out and are looking for another space where it can be performed.
“So I say we won’t be a community theater, but we will be a theater for this community and for the wider Cincinnati region,” Hyland says. “We plan to be both affordable and accessible.”
The affordability and accessibility are big parts of what will make the Imperial a community space. In 2020 and 2021, the team conducted 20 working groups with artists and arts organizations throughout the region to help them focus on how they could both revitalize the theater to best support artists and audiences, as well as be self-sustaining.
“We asked them very specifically: What do you need? What do you want? What would be awesome to have? Design your dream space for us,” Hyland says. “The designs we have now are pretty much the iteration of all of that put together in a way that was affordable to build, but also would maintain affordability once open, both for our artists to use and rent, but also for our audiences [to not pay] exorbitant ticket prices.”
Raising the curtain
The journey to reopening the Imperial began in 2014. Developer Fay has a long history of working on federal historic tax credit projects in Over-the-Rhine — the Imperial is her 43rd project — as well as creating affordable spaces for artists, including the Iris building on Main Street, where she owns the Iris BookCafe and several rent-affordable apartments. Since first arriving on Main Street in the ‘90s, Fay has seen the need for artists, as well as those in the service industry, to be able to live close to where they work.
“They want to be around other creative people, and they can’t afford a whole lot, but they’re very innovative, and they’re very important to what makes an area attractive,” Fay says.
But by 2008, Over-the-Rhine’s renaissance south of Liberty Street was well underway, and people like the artists and arts-adjacent workers were starting to feel the financial pressure. Fay wanted to continue building a community and housing opportunities where artists could still work and live nearby.
“Everybody’s getting priced out. I’m still holding my rents low because I want those people,” Fay explains. “So we (Fay and her business partner at the time, Mike Markiewicz) started looking and came up [to Mohawk]. And because there were so many vacant buildings, nobody down there was looking up here to buy anything or to do anything. … So [the Imperial] was the key building, and we felt if we could get this building back on track, never thinking it would be this many years.”
At the time, the Imperial was owned by the church New Life Outreach Ministries. It had fallen into disrepair, with water damage throughout the theater, and there were liens on the property. Fay says the church’s reverend was hesitant to sell to her at first, hoping his parishioners could help repair the building, but in 2014, he sold the Imperial to Fay, as well as the lot next door. She first had to deal with the liens on the property; then, there were several cleanup sessions.
“By that time, water was pouring into the building in places … a lot of things were just soaked,” says Hyland. “[The reverend] had giant tarps, like the cover of boxcar trains, full of water over the stage. And so the first thing was to get a new roof on.”
Because the Imperial is a historic tax credit project, everything has to be approved by the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit program. It took 18 months for Historic to approve the standing seam roof Fay wanted to install. It then took another 18 months to put on the roof, and then, not long after, came the pandemic.
But even during a pandemic, the theater’s team of volunteers was able to get work done. The water-logged carpet was removed, a lot of cleaning was done and the theater dried out. Since then, the City of Cincinnati has also awarded the project three $100,000 early action, catalytic grants that are now contributing to stabilizing the property, including tuckpointing, or repairing the mortar between the bricks, and new doors.
As the building is stabilized, Fay, Hyland and the rest of the team are now also turning their attention to building a board and figuring out where their priorities lie, including mapping out programming, how to get the word out about their revitalization efforts and the launch of their fundraising campaign that will help bring the renderings of the Imperial to life.
Arrested decay
Even water damage and wear-and-tear couldn’t dull the shine of the Imperial. Standing in the auditorium, it’s still an impressive sight. There’s original decorative plasterwork along the ceilings and walls and original or near-original seats from the American Seating Company. Those will stay; the theater team will choose 425 to 450 of the best ones to polish up and reinstall. Even the Art Moderne makeover of the ‘30s didn’t flow much into this space, with the long gold sconces in the first-floor seating area being the only discernible feature from that era. Standing on the balcony, it’s easy to see the theater team’s vision.
But Fay doesn’t want the theater to be Disney World-esque in its remodel. The Imperial of the 21st century will honor the past but form its own identity, with a style called “arrested decay,” or, in the Imperial’s case, limiting the replacement of the original ornamentation.
“Where we’ve lost the embellishments, we won’t necessarily recreate them. What we’ll do is give an echo in some form,” says Hyland. “So, for example, this here—” Hyland points to a dark gold decorative molding along the ceiling, “will probably get refreshed in a gold of some kind. So where we’ve lost that embellishment, after the drywall or plaster is put on, we’ll paint a gold stripe.” A continuation, not a replacement.
On the balcony, the seats will be re-tiered and there will be a drink or laptop rail along with standing room. From there, we step out onto a fire escape where there’s a small courtyard below. True to their mission to make sure every space in the Imperial can be activated for art or community or both, Hyland and Fay are hoping to turn this into an outdoor space with tables and chairs that can be accessed from the lobby and also provide additional access to the building for those with disabilities.
The projection room is also up here, and it’s another space the team would like to activate.
“We’re hopeful that one of the film societies or film festivals in the city might partner with us. We would really like to keep this a museum space for people, especially with all the exciting things going on with film, with Film Cincinnati and all of the film festivals we do. … We think people are going to come here for film anyway, why not be able to show them a real, key piece of history?” Hyland says.
On the first floor, the stage is the star. While the original vaudeville structure on stage will come down during the rehab, the stage itself will remain, with the addition of a sprung dance floor, which absorbs impact and is easier on performers’ bodies.
“Once the structure is gone, you can see quite a wide space to play with, which is really exciting. All of our artists were like, ‘Don’t change this stage!’” Hyland laughs. “We won’t change it. For [performers], it’s great — a lot of depth, a lot of options. For us, it also offers incredible flexibility.”
This flexibility, which will also be enhanced by the 10-line fly system to be installed, means multiple performances or events can happen in a single day. For example, on a Saturday morning, the Imperial can host a kids’ film series. In the afternoon, they could raise another curtain and have a full theater set ready to go for an 8 p.m. show.
The setup will also include state-of-the-art lights and sound systems that will allow groups to plug in with their own equipment, if desired. Everything will be digital, so they can design from anywhere in the space.
A theater for modern audiences
The lot to the left of the Imperial that Fay also purchased in 2014 is currently vacant, but in a few years, that space will be the site of the theater’s modern annex.
“One thing we’ve learned through the League of Historic American Theaters … every theater in the country, whether you’re in Chicago or New York or cantilevering over an alley, you want the lot next door, because most historic theaters don’t have all the amenities that you would need for performances of today,” says Hyland.
The annex will be three floors, with the team aiming for LEED Silver certification, the second tier in the U.S. Green Building Council’s rating system of sustainable building practices. Plans call for an air-source heat pump, LED lighting throughout and numerous solar panels.
“We’re excited to show that even though it’s a historic building, you can still be environmentally friendly. It also keeps our operational costs much lower,” Hyland says.
Todd Berling of Harvey Marshall Berling Associates is the theater’s designer and planned the whole theater to equity standards. The first floor will feature the new main entrance to the building to keep the theater accessible to those with disabilities. Being a historic building, the Imperial’s step out front can’t be touched, and the building is too close to the street for a ramp. Everyone will enter the building via the ramp into the lobby, where there will be benches, as well as tables and chairs, a bar, a small kitchen, the box office and restrooms.
On the second floor, there will be a cut-out lobby with a movable bar that can be activated for events. This floor will also offer a classroom space, and possibly extra space for things like table reads, auditions and small meetings. And the third level will feature another classroom, plus a rooftop deck, offering an indoor-outdoor space for rentals.
Backstage, there will be 30 dressing stations, two full bathrooms with showers and private changing areas. There will also be a new rehearsal space equipped with a sprung dance floor, just like the stage, as well as a simple lighting grid and sound system. The space will be the same size as the stage, offering seamless transitions for groups rehearsing and going into tech.
In addition to the multiple spaces in the new annex and old theater, the Imperial will also have a movable sound pod you can rent to record podcasts, voiceovers and other audio projects.
And, scene
The Imperial Theater Mohawk Alliance has been hosting once-a-month programming for the past year and is currently in its summer performance series at OTR Stillhouse. The events are aimed at raising awareness of the theater revitalization efforts, as well as raising a little bit of money. Ticket money is split 50/50 with the performers, a model the team wants to continue once the Imperial reopens.
“Our hope is that it’ll be an example of how we wish to run things, as well as the types of people we hope to welcome onto the stage when we get here,” Hyland says.
The team is planning to hit the ground running with a dedicated fundraising campaign soon. The total cost of the project is currently estimated at around $14.5 million, and once the money is raised, buildout will take 12 to 18 months.
“This is a real opportunity to help create something special, sustainable and that will truly transform this neighborhood and this part of the city,” Hyland says. “Really and truly, there’s nothing like it in Cincinnati or the Tri-State region.”
It’s a finish line that’s emerging after a long, 10-plus-year journey to reinvest in the Mohawk district and build a thriving community for artists.
“You have the opportunity for housing here that can house artists,” says Fay, who also bought and renovated the apartment building next door to rent at artist-affordable rates. “Those are the folks who work in the bars and restaurants and do art — performance, movies, comedy, sculpture, opera — and they’re not making big bucks, but they’re a very important part. And I think when the city only embraces 400-500 square-foot, one-bedroom units, they are taking away the possibility for people living here for a long time. They’re taking away from that concept of community that we see could be here. … There’s just a lot of opportunity here and a wonderful place to live.”
For more information on the Imperial Theatre, or if you’re interested in attending one of its programs or donating to the renovation efforts, visit imperialmohawk.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Aug. 6 print edition.
This article appears in Aug 6-19, 2025.
