By Matt Baney on lmtribune.com

‘Blade sign’ removed from downtown Lewiston theater; restoration group plans to replace it

The vertical “Liberty” sign that has been affixed for decades to downtown Lewiston’s iconic theater was removed Tuesday.

But it will be replaced by a lookalike.

The long-simmering effort to restore and reopen the Liberty Theater drew a lot of eyeballs Tuesday when workers removed the well-known “blade sign” from the building. The group working to restore the theater had wanted to refurbish the sign, but discovered it was “way beyond repair,” said Brad Cannon, of Lewiston, who is the group’s construction manager.

The plan calls for a new vertical sign to eventually be installed.

“It’s a historic sign — we’re not going to change it,” Cannon said. “It’s not going to be smaller, it’s not going to be bigger, it’s going to look exactly the same.”

First, the theater’s marquee will be “rebuilt,” Cannon said. It will be stripped down to the interior structure, and then put back together with new wiring and LED lights. The readerboard signs, which are now four lines tall, will be changed to two larger lines, as they were in the past.

The work on the marquee is funded by a $100,000 grant from the Idaho Heritage Trust through the National Park Service.

Work on the marquee will start in two weeks and be done by Alpine Construction Management of Boise. After that is completed, the Liberty group will move forward with a new blade sign.

“It’s going to be beautiful — I’ve seen pictures of how it’s supposed to look,” Cannon said. “It’s really going to improve the look of the building.”

The Art Deco structure at 611 Main St. began life as a theater in 1921. It showed its last movie in 2005.

The Liberty restoration group plans to refurbish the theater and open it as a multi-use venue. It will show movies, but also host plays, concerts, lectures, performances and even weddings.

Cannon said it will take about $2 million to $2.5 million to fund the inside work. So more fundraising and grant-seeking is required.

“We’re a pretty enthusiastic group and we’re pretty optimistic on restoring this facility,” Cannon said. “It’s a part of Lewiston history. We really want to see this back as a multi-use facility again.

“I think the community is behind us and wants to see that Liberty opened again. But, it takes money.”

Baney may be contacted at mbaney@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2251. Follow him on X @MattBaney_Trib.

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