Of the 25 or so historic theaters that once stood in the urban basin of Cincinnati, barely a handful remain. Of that handful, the Emery Theatre is certainly the one with the most illustrious past — and most tenuous future. Created by a $500,000 bequest from philanthropist Mary Emery, dedicated to the memory of her late husband Thomas J. Emery, the Emery Auditorium (as it was originally known) was built with Mary Emery’s explicit intent to remain a theater of “public use.”
Designed by Hannaford & Sons, the Emery opened in 1911. Considered acoustically pure, it was home to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1912 to 1936 and hosted a swath of local and touring productions before any kind of regular operation ceased in the 1980s.
Housed in the Emery Center, the rest of the building was home to the Ohio Mechanics Institute, which was acquired by the University of Cincinnati in 1969. The institute merged with UC’s College of Applied Sciences and later moved from the center to another location. Following the move, UC — under a plan devised by the university and its board of trustees in 1999 — converted the former classrooms into market-rate apartments with the intent that the rent would first pay off the renovation costs, and then fund the revitalization of the Emery Theatre.
That plan was to last 40 years, with an option for a 40-year renewal.
To execute that plan, a for-profit entity, Emery Center Apartments, LLP (ECALP) was formed, charged with overseeing the apartment construction. A separate nonprofit entity, Emery Center Corporation (ECC), was formed with volunteer board members to manage the eventual renovation of the theater, subleasing it from ECALP.
But in July 2018, the university, its board and both secondary organizations sought a declaratory judgement from the Ohio Attorney General to divest from that plan — and Mary Emery’s original purpose for the theater — to allow the space to be repurposed however a potential buyer sees fit. This request was granted in December 2018, 21 years before the expiration of the original plan.
And on April 23, 2019, the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees voted unanimously at its regular meeting to authorize the sale of the Emery Center — which includes the theater, the Emery Center Apartments, retail-front business Coffee Emporium and brokerage group Capstone, which leases office space — through national real estate company the CBRE Group.
CBRE put out a request for proposals (RFP) to developers and potential buyers that is under a confidentiality agreement. (CityBeat has obtained a copy of the Emery Center Offering Memorandum from an anonymous source.)
“The recent RFP was issued because the property, a downtown apartment building, does not fit with UC’s core mission of teaching, research and service,” says MB Reilly, UC’s spokesperson, in an email. “This is not the first time UC has received and subsequently sold downtown property because such property did not fit with the university’s mission. For instance, the bequest that originally led to the founding of the institution we today call UC was actually a bequest of numerous properties downtown, not a bequest of money. The university eventually sold them, some as recently as around the year 2000 or so, because that action fit with our core mission of education. That being the case, UC’s interest in selling is not germane to the theater and never has been.”
More than 30 groups have toured the Emery Center in advance of submitting a bid to CBRE. The original listing of the Emery Center on CBRE’s website stated RFPs were due by the first week of June. That has now been amended to “To Be Announced.”
The Offering Memorandum makes no explicit provision for the retention of the Emery Theatre’s operation as a theater. Mention of the theater in the Offering Memorandum is limited to quoting published sources on its historical context.
In 1998, an exterior site evaluation of the Emery Center was done for a National Historic Register nomination. While it did not receive the nomination, the Emery is located within the Over-the-Rhine Historic District. Buildings within the historic district are subject to review by the Historic Conservation Board. As such, the facade of the Emery Center must remain intact, but the interior — including the theater — is not protected in the same manner.
Included in the Offering Memorandum are building floor layouts created in 2000 from local architecture firm GBBN, and a financial analysis dated February 2019. The financial analysis lists an aggregate monthly income from both the commercial and apartment properties in the Emery Center at $920,512.
According to court documents, in 2010, “ECC obtained estimates from GBBN Architects for a full restoration (of the theater) in the range of $18 million. A ‘heartbeat’ plan to simply bring the orchestra level of the theater up to current code to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy was estimated by GBBN to cost $3 million in 2010.”
Those same documents cite that ECC solicited pledges of more than $2 million in 1999-2000, but efforts to get additional renovation funds from the State of Ohio capital budget were unsuccessful.
Those documents also state that the apartments aren’t bringing in enough money to cover its expenses, according to a previous article by CityBeat reporter Nick Swartsell.
And according to a recent memo from the university to its board of trustees, the Emery is allegedly “beyond repair.”
“In Cincinnati, we know that important buildings are never beyond repair,” says Paul Muller, executive director with the Cincinnati Preservation Association.
“I would just point to Union Terminal. Some of the structural conditions, mechanical conditions and some of the original issues that existed at that building were overcome, because it was important to the community. We’re not talking about anything on the same scale to bring the Emery back into use, but over and over again, we’ve seen, it’s worth it, justified and a really great investment to bring back important historic buildings.”
This article appears in Jun 12-19, 2019.