Forest Theater Setting The Stage For A $66 Million Makeover

The historic Forest Theater is preparing for a major renovation, with a projected budget of $66 million.

The iconic venue, located at 1918 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., has remained shuttered for nearly two decades, much to the disappointment of community members and art lovers alike.

To facilitate this ambitious revitalization, a substantial capital campaign totaling $75.215 million has been initiated, cleverly referencing the area’s ZIP code to highlight local community engagement, reported Candy’sDirt.

A significant development occurred on November 13, when the Dallas City Council awarded an $8 million grant, which will provide a crucial boost to the revitalization efforts.

Here is more of what Candy’sDirt reported on the restoration, which aims to breathe new life into the historic building and reintegrate it into the community, enriching the area’s cultural landscape:

The historic Forest Theater is about to get a $66 million makeover, and by the looks of renderings released by HKS Architects and Designers, it’s going to be a showstopper.

The theater at 1918 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. has been closed for almost 20 years and recently launched a $75.215 million capital campaign — a nod to the area’s ZIP code — to cover the costs of the revitalization project.

An $8 million grant awarded by the Dallas City Council on Wednesday could jumpstart the much-anticipated revitalization project. Officials with the nonprofit Forest Forward, which owns the building, say dirt should be moving in early 2025.

The City of Dallas is putting up funds from its Infrastructure Investment Fund and Public Private Partnership Fund. The renovation project aligns with the Dallas Economic Development Incentive Policy, which identifies “strategic target areas” such as South Dallas where catalyst projects are in high demand.

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In a Nov. 8 memorandum, Interim Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley advised that the city’s grant funds will cover:

• Rehabilitation of the historic Forest Theater complex in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.
• New ground-up construction of an approximately 28,000-square-foot building addition.
• A café, rooftop deck, lawn for special events, and a multi-use “festival street.”

But that’s just a fraction of what Forest Forward and HKS have in store. According to public documents, architects say the completed theater complex will be 66,000 square feet with a 13,000-square-foot arts education hub, a performance hall with more than 1,000 seats, a multi-use 200-seat studio theater, a recording studio, and a restaurant.

The updated theater will have lower, mezzanine and upper-balcony seating with a large stage and orchestra pit. Classrooms for students at the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Academy will be built to establish a pipeline to successful arts careers for South Dallas youth.

Historic Forest Theater

The theater is described as a “key physical cultural asset in South Dallas” and is owned by the philanthropic group Forest Forward. The venue has been a movie theater, a ballroom, a nightclub, and a concert hall. Shows hosted by Dallas legend Erykah Badu are said to have drawn the likes of Tina Turner, Sidney Poitier, Prince, and the Roots to South Dallas.

The theater closed in 1965 due to declining ticket sales but stayed open as an entertainment venue until 2008. Forest Forward was founded in 2020 to restore and expand the theater.

The building was constructed by the Hoblitzelles in 1949, when South Dallas was a primarily Jewish neighborhood, and MLK Boulevard was Forest Avenue, according to an article by Jennie Trejo published on Dallas Doing Good.

“As Black families moved into South Dallas in the 1940s and ’50s and white families moved out, the theater, which opened as a whites-only venue in 1949, began catering to Black-only audiences by 1956,” the article states.

South Dallas resident Shirley Rhodes said at Wednesday’s council meeting she remembers visiting the venue in the early 1960s.

“I remember the lights,” she said. “If you go out of town, those lights will guide you back to Dallas. As a child, that’s where I spent my Saturday mornings being entertained by movies. As a young adult after being married, my husband loved to go party there at the club. Now I’m excited to see it come back so we can go back to the movies, have a real restaurant where we can sit down and be waited on, then go up on the patio and enjoy the views of the City of Dallas … I want to see Dallas glow again.”

Elizabeth Wattley began working on the theater revitalization when she was the director at CitySquare, which purchased the theater in 2017. Wattley filed paperwork to create the nonprofit Forest Forward and now serves as the organization’s president and CEO.

Wattley thanked the council on Wednesday for its efforts to bring the “shiny bright lights back to sunny South Dallas.”

Forest Forward works with the community to drive equitable development and economic mobility and improve outcomes for children, residents, and families of the South Dallas community, according to its website.

“While the theater is the focus, there’s a lot more community impact,” Wattley said in a press release. “HKS is able to see the ripple effect of what can happen and start repairing down the line for what a master plan should really start working toward.”

About Those Renderings …

It’s safe to say the revitalization project is in good hands because Dallas-based HKS is involved. The architecture and design firm released renderings for the Forest Theater project in April. They’re stunning and once the building is complete, there’s no doubt it will draw crowds who wish to honor the theater’s history and those who want to check it out for the first time.

“Historical photos from 1956 show a swarm of people lined up outside the box office to catch the entertainment of the night,” according to the HKS website. “HKS is honored to work with Forest Forward in realizing their vision to revitalize the theater and have it serve as a community focal point that knits once separated neighborhoods back together,” said Mike Vela, a Principal and Senior Project Manager at HKS, in a public statement.

Councilman Omar Narvaez lauded the project at Wednesday’s meeting.

“The theater is an amazing project, and thank you all for all your work in revitalizing this,” he said. “I’m just so happy that it’s not being torn down and it’s being brought back to life. It’s not the typical Dallas way of doing things but this is the way we should be protecting those gems that we have.”