TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Ybor's Ritz Theatre's Renovation Will Be In The Limelight Saturday

ADVERTISEMENT

By KURT LOFT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 6, 2008

Updated: 06/06/2008 12:22 am

TAMPA - They've put the Ritz back into Ybor City.

One of the area's grand old structures refuses to buckle under age or neglect and this weekend will make plenty of noise about its future.

The historical Ritz Theatre, which opened at Seventh Avenue and 15th Street during World War I, presents its first concert after an initial $750,000 in improvements. Instead of being reduced to silence or rubble, the Ritz is enjoying a restoration that its owners hope will revive nine decades of memories.

"This was a place to go when I was a kid," said Joseph Capitano, 70, who purchased the building in 1988. "We'd all come to here to see movies."

The Ritz is one of the area's last theaters from the early 20th century still standing. Its more famous cousin - the Tampa Theatre on Franklin Street - opened in 1926, nearly a decade after the Ritz.

It was known as the Rivoli in those days, and over the years wore a number of different names, from the Ritz Adult Theater to the Masquerade night club. It served as a movie house until the 1970s, featuring first-run films, and later cheesy 1950s sci-fi flicks. Its run as forum for triple X movies stirred up plenty of ire in the community.

The structure itself was built to last, surviving the decaying years of Ybor City after World War II, and the much-maligned urban renewal efforts of the 1960s. Although Ybor was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 (it became a National Historic Landmark District in 1989), the Ritz eventually became a tired and bleak-looking place, said Frank Zaccaro, a Tampa concert promoter who has booked Bogus Pomp for Saturday. The band specializes in the music of the late Frank Zappa.

"The Ritz was one step away from condemnation," he said. "Now it's going to be a viable space for musical acts, smaller than the Tampa Theatre but larger than a night club."

The Capitano family, which owns a half-dozen iconic Ybor structures, all along felt the Ritz had class underneath its rough surface. So they invested a considerable sum of their personal money into the makeover, much to the satisfaction of Manny Leto, an Ybor City historian and editor of Cigar City Magazine.

"Any time you can preserve the historical structures and fabric of Ybor, it's a positive," he said. "Over the years, the Ritz has been an anchor of Ybor, with a great history of theater and the arts."

The new transformation from night club to concert hall features an 18,000-square-foot Theatre Ball Room with room for 1,000 seats over a black-and-white checkered floor, smaller Rivoli and Royal rooms for private parties and an ornate Grand Foyer entrance.

The renovation includes a new stage and dressing rooms, velour curtains along the walls, lighting system and ornate Mediterranean-style bathrooms.

"It's a totally new space," Zaccaro said. "If all goes well, we'll be bringing in national acts: jazz, blues, pop, rock and comedy."

The flurry of activity that begins this weekend, Capitano said, inevitably will help preserve what the Ritz has meant to Ybor.

"We're trying to save some of these old buildings," he said. "And we want to bring in events that will help make Ybor vital again."

THE RITZ THEATRE

WHAT: Celebration of renovated theater, featuring Bogus Pomp

WHEN: 9 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Ritz Theatre, Seventh Avenue and 15th Street, Ybor City

HOW MUCH: $25 at the door; (813) 247-2555

Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT