
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080557
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: JUSTINE ELIAS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

LYRIC THEATER COULD CLOSE AFTER TECH'S LEASE EXPIRES

Since September 1989, the Lyric Theater has served as a lecture hall for Virginia Tech, where classroom space has been tight for years.

But Tech's two-year lease on the 61-year-old College Avenue landmark ends in August. The Squires Student Center, now being renovated, reopens in September.

Bob Johnson of HCMF Real Estate, which leases the Lyric to Tech, declined to say if the company had any plans for the building.

"We're satisfied that the property has stabilized and that it's not deteriorating," he said.

"If it goes, that's one more thing disappearing from the downtown scene," said Walter Bundy, president of the Downtown Merchants Association and owner of Buddy's.

The Lyric went dark in June 1989 after the Kelsey family, who had operated the movie house for nearly 60 years, sold the building to HCMF.

The 700-seat theater once showed first-run movies to sellout audiences. But by the 1970s, the Lyric was competing with television and large theater chains. In the '80s, home videos became the nemesis for older theaters.

Over 2,000 students a week meet for classes in the Lyric Theater. And the Virginia Tech Union screens as many as four movies a weekend to audiences of 20 to 500 people, said VTU Films Chairman Glenn Ramsey.

Offerings range from the blockbuster "Ghost," released in May 1990, to Fellini's "8 1/2," which won the 1963 Academy award for best foreign language film.

"Blacksburg has second-run films at the Lyric and the Capri, but if you want to see new movies, you have to go to the New River Valley Mall," Ramsey said.

Virginia Tech spokesman Dave Nutter says the university, short on space, has depended on the Lyric to house its largest lecture classes.

Tech once planned to buy the Lyric Theater to use as a lecture hall, but HCMF's offer went through first, Nutter said.

***CORRECTION***

Published correction ran on February 9, 1991.

Walter Bundy, owner of Bundy's, is immediate past president of the Downtown Merchants Association in Blacksburg, not president as stated in a story about the Lyric Theater in Friday's New River Current. Joe Slattery, an owner of Backstreet Pizza, is the current president.

Memo: CORRECTION

by CNB