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The historic Bob White Theatre needs a new heart. Tonight the Oregon Donors performance troupe is staging Repo! The Genetic Opera, a bloody rock musical about human organ robbers. This show will likely be the Bob White's last unless someone else steps in.
Negotiations for the venue's sale fell through April 13, when manager Nick Haas announced that theater owner and "retired" real estate trader Nick Storie would not accept Haas's offer to buy. After six months of negotiations and multiple failed deals with banks and third-party lenders, Haas, 27, said his life savings, collected since middle school, are basically wiped out from money he put into the theater. He'll go back to playing bass and fixing cars for now.
"I really did hope he'd come through," said Storie. "I think of him like one of my own children."
The venue has a hodgepodge past. Opened in 1924 by its namesake, a World War I Navy veteran, the theater stopped screening movies in the 1980s and became storage for a musical organ collector before Storie bought it for $350,000 in 2012.
"I won't even get into those other happenings there," said Michael Mullilnax, Repo's director, referring to the notoriously raucous raves at the Bob White.
According to Haas, Portland's Fire Marshal's office deemed the space unfit for dancing or as a bar or restaurant. He estimates it would cost $1.5 million for the ventilation system, sprinklers, seismic upgrades and other renovations to get it up to code for concerts and the restaurant Haas dreamt of building in the warehouse.
Storie says the theater is already bleeding him, costing $3,000 a month for basic operation, and that its shows haven't made any significant profit.
"Nick Storie is set with money," Haas said. "He's a property man and likes to get his rent check on the first, cash it the second, and be gardening on the third."
Storie originally quoted Haas $840,000 for the entire venue, which Haas managed to meet with the help of friend investors and bank loans. But then a banker who pledged $1.3 million in liquid assets backed out 48 hours before closing and the next deal Storie offered was for the theater alone, at $450,000.
According to Haas, Storie planned to grow medical marijuana in the warehouse space. But with the building inside a school zone, that won't happen. "I want to move my car collection in there to work on," said Storie. "And I have a lot of high-grade recycled lumber to store."
The theater is still on the market and Storie is eager to get it off his hands, though there are no promising buyers yet.
"Hell, I'll take a trade for the place. It's the cost of two cheap houses," Storie said. "I though I was retiring years ago, so now I just want to have a good time and not piss off too many people."
Repo! The Genetic Opera is at the Bob White Theatre, 6423 SE Foster Rd., 894-8672, 10 pm. $8. Half of the profits will be donated to Red Castle Games, which was hit by a suspected drunk driver April 2.
WWeek 2015