Crown Uptown owner applies for wrecking permit, but council can grant theater 180-day stay
The Wichita City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to allow the owner of the 96-year-old Crown Uptown Theatre, at 3207 E. Douglas, to follow through on his promise to tear the building down or to give the building a 180-day stay.
Tulsa businessman Mike Brown, who bought the theater in 2023, has filed for a wrecking permit with the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department, according to Tuesday’s City Council agenda. He had previously said he’d tear the theater down if the City Council did not approve his request to more than double the building’s capacity, which he said he would need to turn a profit.
On Feb. 4, the council denied his latest application. Brown filed for the permit the following day, a move that automatically notified the city’s preservation board.
After that, Wichita’s preservation planner let the owner know that the city would take interim control of the building for 30 days so that alternatives to demolition could be discussed.
That 30-day period will end March 7. The council will vote Tuesday on whether to take advantage of a municipal code that would extend the preservation period to Aug. 4 to allow time to determine whether the property is “a significant historic community resource and should be listed on one or more registers of historic places,” the agenda says.
Reached on Friday, Brown said he had no further comment on the matter.
City Council member Brandon Johnson, whose district includes the Crown Uptown Theatre, said Friday that he wasn’t surprised to learn about the wrecking permit application.
“I don’t believe the rest of College Hill wants to see that building torn down,” Johnson said. “I guess that’s just him making good on his promise because he didn’t get what he wanted.”
The Crown is not listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, nor is it on any state or local historic places registry. Getting a building listed — a process that can be completed without the owner’s involvement — does not necessarily guard it against demolition. But tearing down a listed building requires more review and consideration, according to the staff report given to council members.
The staff report also says that 180 days would be enough time to get the building listed on the Wichita historic places registry. If that happens, Kansas state preservation law would provide another review by the Wichita Historic Preservation Board, which could appeal the permit to the City Council.
If the building is not listed during the 180-day interim period, the “control period” preventing the demolition can’t be extended.
Johnson said the owner also could use that 180-day window to find a plan for the building that would work for him, for the city and for the neighborhood, Johnson said.
“There’s a lot of things that could be done,” Johnson said. “We just don’t know what will be done. It’s up to him to see if he wants to be a good neighbor and see if he can reach some kind of compromise.”
Neighborhood opposition
When he bought the theater in 2022, Brown offered then-owner J Basham double what others were willing to pay, Basham said last fall.
Brown, who’d worked as vice president of operations for TempleLive when the company purchased the Scottish Rite Center in 2019 and turned part of it into a concert venue, had similar plans for The Crown and said he wanted to put on concerts by bigger-name artists who wouldn’t consider booking shows at venues with capacities smaller than 2,000.
But when he started the process last fall of trying to increase the building’s capacity from 850 to 2,066, he faced opposition.
His plans were denounced by College Hill residents and the Crown’s business neighbors, who said they worried about parking. A Wichita resident also started a Change.org petition demanding that the theater be protected from demolition. It has 351 signatures to date.
Brown’s request to increase the occupancy to 2,066 was rejected in December by the council, who sent the proposal back to the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, citing concerns about fire safety and parking.
Then, in February, the council rejected a new application that would allow the fire marshal to set the occupancy limit. During the meeting, City Fire Marshal Chris Dugan voiced opposition to the plan.
The theater, built in 1927, is a two-story Italianate building that was designed by the Boller Brothers and constructed by George Siedhoff. It opened as a movie theater in 1928. In recent years, it’s been used for stage productions and smaller concerts.
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 12:20 PM.
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