Du Quoin in early stages of a possible restoration of Grand Theater

http://www.duquoin.com/article/20171011/news/171019965/

DU QUOIN, IL-  (Geoffrey Ritter, DuQuoin Call.  Please click on the link above for the full story.  Here is an excerpt below.)

Du Quoin’s beautiful but shuttered Grand Theater may find new life in the near future, but first there will be a healthy serving of due diligence.

The budget for Du Quoin’s tax increment financing districts, adopted at Monday’s city council meeting, lists as a new initiative an effort to “revive, redevelop, and reestablish” the Grand Theater, located at the corner of Washington and Main streets.

Mayor Guy Alongi said Monday that while the prospect of reestablishing the theater is exciting, the city will proceed cautiously and deliberately.

“We don’t want it to turn into a white elephant that we have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on,” Alongi said. “We want to walk through this before we run

Below is a link to the website Cinema Treasures that tells the history of the Grand.  There will be an excerpt from the article as well.

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/5655

The Grand Theatre is truly a movie palace. It’s small town location and continuous operation put in a very unique position. Most of the small town palaces are gone, they will never be back. If for no other reason the Grand Theatre should be kept going and if possible be restored. The Grand Theatre was closed on October 18, 2010 screening “Alpha and Omega” and “Let Me In”. However, after a two weeks closure, it was re-opened on November 5, 2010. The Grand Theatre was closed in January 2016.