Cameo Theatre annex's inventory being sold off to make way for new owner

BRISTOL, Tenn. – The Cameo Theatre annex resembled a giant yard sale Tuesday, as organizers prepared to shut the doors on a decade of drama and arts education.

From audio equipment, stage props, costumes and shelving to woodworking tools, cabinets, folding chairs and some 3,500 donated auto hubcaps, left to the theater by the estate of a supporter, everything must go, said Kenneth Hill, president of the nonprofit organization that owns the annex.

“We have a contract to sell the annex and must have everything out by the end of the month,” Hill said by phone Tuesday. “We haven’t closed on it yet, but are trying to sell off the inventory from 10 years of arts camps.”

A public sale has been scheduled Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the annex, a one-story brick building at 700 State St.

Items also fill the stage inside the theater, which is on the Virginia side of town.

Twana Meade, of Sullins Academy, walked quickly through the stacks of items Tuesday afternoon.

“We’re going to look at their choir risers and some other things. We just wanted to see what was available and see if there was anything we could use,” Meade said.

Joan Pardue said she helped organize the items and came back to see what would be sold.

The Appalachian Educational Communications Corp., which operates a local Christian radio station, owns both the annex and theater. The arts and music camps ended three years ago, when funding dried up, Hill said.

“It’s unfortunate, but there just was no money to continue,” Hill said. “This is a very difficult thing – especially for our folks who operated the outreach for the youngsters. We wish we could have continued.”

For a decade, the organization operated summer and winter camps for young people, presented film festivals and live musical performances. A combination of rising insurance costs and declining donations doomed that portion of the operation.

“We didn’t operate with grants or endowments. We operated on donations – primarily from individuals. When people’s discretionary income is not as great, you don’t cut out essentials, you cut out what you give excess to. And we didn’t have the wherewithal to continue,” Hill said.

He declined to disclose who plans to buy the 8,000-square-foot annex and what the building’s future might hold.

Christina Blevins, executive director of Believe in Bristol’s Main Street program, also declined to discuss specifics, but said she is “very excited” and that it will be “great” for downtown.

Across State Street, the nearly 10,000-square-foot art-deco theater remains on the market and currently has an $875,000 asking price. A previous appraisal fixed its value at $1.25 million, but city property records place the value at $195,600.

“There is moderate interest,” real estate agent Wally Boyd said of the building. “I’ve had several very interested parties, but nothing has happened yet. The major complaint has been a lack of parking – that seemed to be the dagger a couple of times.”

A new roof and other improvements were made to the theater in the past year, Boyd said.

The Cameo was established as a vaudeville theatre – primarily attracting audiences and performers from the passenger trains that regularly stopped in the Twin City. It was used as a movie theater in the years that followed and the asking price includes an antique movie projector. The nonprofit organization acquired the theater in 1995.

Blevins wasn’t optimistic about the prospects for finding a buyer.

“We think it would be great to get someone in there to do a movie theater – maybe old movies, black and white, something cool,” Blevins said. “But right now, I don’t foresee that property going for what they’re asking.”While people reminisce about the Cameo, the downtown group doesn’t consider it a significant part of their revitalization efforts, Blevins said.

“The Cameo would have been more important if it still had the historic value, but when they [previous owners] changed the facade in the late 50s or early 60s, they diminished its [historic] value. Had they not, it would have been something spectacular,” Blevins said.

Because of those changes, the Cameo is listed as a non-contributing building to the downtown’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1925, the Cameo predated the historic 1927 Bristol Sessions country music recordings by two years and the nearby Paramount Center for the Arts by six. It is among the 20 oldest theaters in Virginia, according to the League of Historic American Theatres.

The sale is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. until noon Saturday.

For more information, call (423) 878-6279.

dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532