Old theater in Wichita could get new life after nonprofit lands building in auction

A landmark of the NoMar Plaza area in north Wichita has new hope of a revival.

The 1928 shuttered Nomar Theater was one of the four buildings up for auction Friday. Some feared the high bidder for the landmark would be a developer who’d plow the building. But, after nearly two hours and dozens of re-raises, the victor emerged was a newly-formed nonprofit.

“We want to restore it. We want to keep that historical, cultural beacon that it is,” said Gene Camarena with Empower Evergreen. “We’ll use it for things hopefully to benefit the community.”

The organization aims to help Hispanic/Latino community in the north side of Wichita through education, workforce development and career readiness.

Ariel Rodriguez, the executive director of the organization, said reviving the theater will take at least $2 million. He said the organization is still working on securing funds.

Prior to the auction, the four buildings were open for tours. The floor of the building to the north of the theater, which was also bought by the nonprofit, was covered in bird droppings, feathers and what appeared to be insulation.

Camarena said it could eventually become a business incubator space.

People marveled at the old theater as they walked around with their cell phone flashlights emitting a tiny bit of light in the near pitch black darkness.

The theater still had lots of items inside, including an old register, 1963 copy of the Wichita Beacon paper, furniture and miscellaneous items — some of which were covered in dust with raccoon prints.

There was also furniture and stacks of boxes marked by month and year that were filled with receipts from Basham Furniture Rental, which was owned by the late James Basham.

Basham, who died in August 2020, bought the theater in the 1980s and then bought the other three buildings that were being auctioned, according to one of his sons. The theater was used as a furniture warehouse and for office space.

A front room of the theater, which was near an old ticket booth and looked like it could have been an office at one point, was filled with black mold.

But some signs of the theater’s beauty still remain: what appears to be stonework of a lion and man adorn part of the ceiling and the Spanish-Oriental architecture is still visible from the facade.

The roughly $100,000 theater — about $1.5 million in today’s dollars — opened in 1929 in what was then the suburbs of Wichita.

“We are showing only first run and first suburban run pictures here,” the general manager told The Eagle in a 1929 article. “All our programs will be talking programs, provided that we can get the best and only the best in sound films for the house.”

“We’re proud of this theater and we want Wichita to be just as proud as we are. We have tried to buy the best there is in equipment and furnishings, and our policy will be to give Wichita the best the film world has to offer at a price suitable to its pocketbook.”

The article said that the “drapes are of rayon silk velvet in backgrounds of tie dye color effects.”

Heavy amber glass chandeliers helped light the room.

“The marquee sign and lighting effects on the front of the theater are said to rival any (theater) in the state,” the article said.

The theater could seat 800 people with “every seat in perfect line of vision with the screen.”

Martin Garcia, a community activist who attended the auction, said his grandfather used to attend shows at the theater and was once dragged to the minority section in the back of the theater after he sat in the wrong section.

The parking lot could fit up to 400 vehicles and vehicles were parked by an attendant, according to another 1929 article in The Eagle.

Tony Delgado, who unsuccessfully bid on the theater and building across the street, said he remembered walking to the theater from 12th and Market when he was a teen in the late 1970s.

He said the theater owners would have a mariachi band playing in the parking lot.

The 59-year-old calls that area the “Old Town for Mexicans.”

The theater was closed in the early 1970s after the Kansas Supreme Court upheld a Sedgwick County Court ruling against the theater’s owner for showing obscene movies.

It reopened in the late 1970s showing foreign-language films, according to a 1993 article in The Eagle.

Basham bought it in the 1980s. Friday’s auction put it under new ownership.

The auction was done at Basham Home Store, which neighbors three of the buildings that were up for sale.

McCurdy Auction first auctioned each of the four properties individually, which went by somewhat quickly. What lengthened the time was when people had the option of bidding on multiple properties at once.

The bid on the individual properties ended at $291,500. When people could combine buildings, it bumped the final total up to $558,000.

Rodriguez and Camarena won the two properties with a $300,000 bid.

After bidding back and forth, Romaldo Lopez’s $178,000 bid came in highest for a building across the street from the theater parking lot. It is adjacent to a building he is currently renovating at the southeast corner of 21st and Market.

He plans to rent the front of the building and possibly demolish the back to add parking for his business.

“I was thinking it would be a little less money,” he said, “but I think it will work for me being right next door.”

The last property auctioned was a triplex that went for $80,000.

J Basham, the son of the late James Basham and owner of the Crown Uptown Theatre, said he is happy the properties sold and that the plan is to bring new life to the theater. He said that he unsuccessfully tried to start a nonprofit to buy the theater from his father 10 years ago and turn it into a performing arts center.

Besides the new owners, that area has seen other development in recent years.

In 2004, the city approved a $228 million plan to revitalize 21st Street from Hillside to Amidon.

Garcia, the community activist, is happy the theater is now also poised for a makeover.

“It’s just a start,” he said. “It’s by no means the end.”

After the auction in the parking lot of the Nomar Theater, Rodriguez reached his arms out and hugged Camarena. A newly-placed sign on the front of the theater said “sold.”

This story was originally published April 10, 2021 at 6:01 AM.