Bijou theater eugene8/12/2023 ![]() Master and business partner developer Tim Weiskind (their other projects include the Park Place apartments downtown) are looking to collaborate with the Metro. “This is going to be the First National Tap House,” he says, patting a cobbled brick wall. Standing on the first floor of the gutted 19th-century bank building, Master’s voice is barely audible over the cacophony of drills and hammers working overhead on 16 luxury apartments, also owned by Master. “If X marks the spot,” Master says, pointing to the intersection of Willamette Street and Broadway Avenue, “this is the best corner in Eugene. Braud, who describes the Bijou Metro as “the perfect project for downtown,” estimates that the city has invested about $20 million into the Broadway area thus far. According to Braud, the city of Eugene is financing $70,000 for the Bijou Metro and $500,000 for Master Capital Management LLC to revamp the Bijou site, the former First National Bank building and later a Taco Time, through the Downtown Revitalization Loan Program (other loan benefactors coming to the block include Off The Waffle, Noisette Pastry Kitchen and The Barn Light). Unlike the controversial 12-screen multiplex that was originally proposed by the urban renewal project in the mid-aughts, the Bijou Metro will be a compact venue totaling 3,300 square feet.Ĭrafting an experience was on Schiessl’s mind two years ago when he started working with developer Steve Master of Master Capital Management LLC and Denny Braud and Mike Sullivan of Eugene’s Urban Renewal Agency. ![]() Forty years after what was then called the Eugene Renewal Agency razed the Heilig - Eugene’s oldest movie theater - the Bijou Metro will open with the aid of the current Eugene Urban Renewal Agency. Today, the city is host to three theaters: the Regal Valley River Center Stadium 15, the David Minor Theater and the Bijou. When “talkies” first hit the silver screen in the late ’20s, Eugene had five theaters (the Heilig, the Rex, the Colonial, the Eugene State Theater and the McDonald), and by 1980, more than 10 theaters lit up the town with their marquees. For now, ticket prices will remain the same as the original Bijou. Outfitted with four auditoriums - two 40-seaters and two 20-seaters - the Metro will curate film series (think kung fu, old classics, ’80s action flicks), expand and tailor programming for Eugene audiences (seven-days-a-week matinees, a screen devoted to classics) and grow partnerships with the community through events like DisOrient and the UO’s Film on Film series. The First National Tap House, an English-style pub, will open next door and connect directly to the theater. Opening in spring 2013, the new Bijou Metro will serve local beer, wine and a limited gourmet menu. digital rendering courtesy Master Capital Management “We can’t just offer a seat to sit in for five bucks anymore.”ĭigital rendering of the plans for the new Bijou Metro. “It’s pretty crucial that movie theaters actually offer some sort of experience,” says Ed Schiessl, who co-owns and operates Bijou Art Cinemas with Louise Thomas and Jamie Hosler. But in today’s ever-changing media landscape, it may be harder than ever to lure would-be moviegoers away from their HD flat-screen-equipped living rooms, where movies can be found for little to no cost via iTunes, Netflix or BitTorrent, and into the theater. Over 70 years later, decades after the last downtown Eugene movie house closed, Bijou Art Cinemas is opening a second location at Willamette and Broadway with the hope of helping revitalize the city’s core through cinema and culture again. OK, they were actually local actors hired by the theater for the “Hollywood Premiere and Follies,” a show replicating the Hollywood glamour of an opening night at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater and slated by The Register-Guard as “one of the biggest social and theatrical events ever seen in this city.” Downtown Eugene: On a spring evening in 1938, Shirley Temple, Laurel and Hardy, Mae West, Ginger Rogers and the Three Stooges could be seen posing for the paparazzi under the bright lights of the Heilig Theater marquee where the Hult Center now stands.
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