Tivoli shall rise again, says ballet
(Hamilton Spectator, Gary Smith, Dec 26 2012)

The last of Hamilton’s old vaudeville houses, the Tivoli, sitting now like some faded relic of another age, may soon have a spectacular facelift.

“I can’t say who is footing the bill until the ‘T’s are crossed and the ‘I’s are dotted, but this is going forward, no doubt,” says Belma Diamante, CEO of Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble who presently own the building.

“There will be condos behind, a commercial shopping centre in front and the theatre will remain at the heart and soul of the whole business,” she says.

“We’ve had a couple of offers recently but none of those would guarantee the theatre would operate according to our wishes plus they wanted to buy the place for a song. This one is an iron clad deal that allows us to restore and use the theatre portion of the development as a centre for the arts in Hamilton.”

Diamante, speaking on a guarantee of anonymity for the buyer until due diligence is completed at the end of January says, “It’s a sweet deal that will be good for everyone.”

Diamante rescued the building from the wrecker’s ball purchasing it for her CBYE dance company, from the Sniderman family, previous owners, for $2. Since then her organization has spent considerable sums making necessary repairs to keep the building sustainable.

“It became obvious though that we could not raise the substantial amount of money to complete our plans for a theatre and commercial complex. “

“The developers who came forward recently had the wrong solutions as far as we were concerned. Now we are ready to move with a new player and a guarantee the theatre will survive.”

The Tivoli is the last of the old theatres that once graced Hamilton’s downtown; The Palace, Savoy, Grand Opera House and Lyric were more glamorous and more historically important.

“They should have been spared,” Diamante says, “But they were ripped down to make way for parking lots and strip malls. Very stupid.”

“The thing is,” she continues, “the Tivoli figures in many peoples’ memories. They went there on dates. They saw great movies there. Plus it’s all that’s left of these old movie palaces that could be turned into a real theatre.”

Diamante insists she will use her connections in the Hamilton arts world to make the Tivoli rise again. Her plan is for dance, music, drama and concerts of all types.

“Just think of a night of jazz at the Tivoli and then a walk on James Street past all the little galleries … It will help anchor the new James Street with the rest of the downtown.”

Diamante says she tried to get support at all levels but this sale that is taking place is the answer to the Tivoli problem.

“I won’t rest until the Tivoli has been restored and is up and running. I need to know I’ve finished what I started.

“I can tell you for me it’s a relief. I was tired of being bullied by all levels. When we bought the Tivoli in 2007 we saved the city a lot of money they would have spent demolishing the building. Now we will make it rise again. That’s a promise.”


Collapsed/redacted in June/July 2004. Restoration plans announced June 2006. Purchase finalized in Sept 2006. Construction originally anticipated to begin in late 2007.

Would be nice to see this one done right.

Great news. Awesome concept to have condos and commercial and keep the theatre.

Might see 3 cranes on James North this year, this, Lister and Acclamation.

What about a crane at James and Vine?

BTW, how can condos go behind the Tivoli when the the theatre pretty much goes right up to Hughson st?

Also, wonder what the shopping centre out front will look like. It's a pretty neat space now.

Can't wait to see the plans.

^Not sure about the condos going in behind unless they're cantilevered above the Tiv.

I'd really like to see the adjoining 'Centre Point' strip mall bite the dust. To do this properly, that corner property needs to get redeveloped, too.

Great news. I've been waiting on this for what seems like an eternity.

My perfect vision of this project would also be if the strip mall was leveled and an 8-10 story condo with ground floor retail went up in it's place. That strip mall never should have been there in the first place. Pretty sure it's owned by the same guy doing the James and Vine thing, unfortunately.

One and the same. Getting rid of that plaza, whether for parkland or higher-density mixed use development, will be the most significant measure of James North's ability to move the needle.

Density will probably always be a point of friction with locals. Beaume's James/Vine development awoke worries about it being "too big" despite being within the city's established height allowances.

Under the Secondary Plan's Schedule L-3, height on the James-Hughson-Wilson-Cannon block tops out at 6 storeys, while the block directly to the east (and the five that follow) is for 4-storey development. (The city has set a 12-storey ceiling along York from Bay to MacNab.)

There are obviously allowances that can be made: Vrancor's Homewood Suites development, for example, is on a site earmarked for 12-storey max. But the first step would just be putting CentrePoint into play.

I don't see why there would be any height restrictions in the area. It's not like there is an over development problem. Let the market dictate the height of the buildings. What the city should be concentrating on is street level uses.

Am I the only one who sees this as a bit of a joke?

There's no information here. No developer. No partner. No funding. Once again, the spectator reports it as if it's news. What is the hurry to make an announcement if you can't announce anything concrete? Just wait til Feb if that's when it's going to be finalized.

I'm sick of these big stories being reported as news. They are just fables at the moment.

Same with Blanchard's crap. He's going to tear a bunch of buildings down, and people wont' fight it because he sent out some fuzzy pictures of coloured boxes? A member of this very forum created better renderings in his unpaid spare time than the Blanchard "proposal". The spectator needs to work a little bit harder before printing this garbage.

I can't believe the city opted for urban infill for the James Vine development project. These other ideas were so much better. I don't see the point in creating more commercial space if there's still parts of the Stelco Tower and Jackson Square left empty.

http://www.hamilton.ca/CityDepartmen...VineStreet.htm

The Urban Infill is the nicest looking one of the bunch to me, and also doesn't involve tearing down the existing buildings, thus avoiding the risk of ending up with another parking block.

Yes my guess is the other two options would need a lot of private investment which would probably takes years to materialize if ever.

Urban infill makes the most sense at this point.

We could do worse than Option 2, and quite often do.

The B&T consortium seems to have a lot of momentum (e.g. Queen & Peter, James & Vine), but its girders are currently rising two blocks west of where Option 1 is located. Maybe a good thing -- a medley of development would be a welcome change of pace.

As for Option 3, I wouldn't hold out much hope of another movie theatre downtown until residential density doubles or triples. The Tivoli was once a movie theatre, of course, as was southern neighbour the Downtown Theatre (originally the Grand Opera House), both operated as Famous Players houses I believe.

Chain cinemas were yanked out of the lower city a long time ago, as part of a broader trend -- the Centre Mall octoplex closed the same year the Lime Ridge multiplex was retired, shortly after SilverCity Ancaster came online and Upper James Cinemas was shuttered four years ago in celebration of the arrival of SilverCity Hamilton Mountain, which opened the same day.

Added grain of salt? EcDev's "60,000 sq ft multiplex theatre" would considerably dwarf the 41,000 sq ft SilverCity Hamilton Mountain.

RIP:

Avon (195 Ottawa N) closed 1987
Broadway (251 King William) closed 1997
Centre Mall 8 (1145 Barton) closed 2001
Century (12 Mary ) closed 1988
Hyland (190 King E) closed 1985
Main West 2 (1605 Main) closed 1985
Odeon (156 King E) closed 1991
Playhouse (177 Sherman) closed 1985
Reo (170 Parkdale) closed 1985
Tivoli (110 James N) closed 1989
Towne (760 Barton) closed 1980
York (164 York) closed 1985

As for the Tivoli itself, it would be nice for the Spec to backburner this story until it is news. Let us know when it has flamed out or come to fruition but enough of the "any day now, for real this time, this is the year" updates-that-merely-rehash-the-history.

These are not true options and they're at least five years old: it's just the Planning Dept doing its thing. There are all kinds of these proposals on the City website and they're meaningless, though nice to look at (sometimes).

You'll notice the trend that their ideas often involve razing some or most of the properties in the study - some things never change in this city!

Here's the preamble:

Site Development Potential
The Urban Design group explored the development potential and to provide design direction for the block bounded by James Street North to the east, Park Street to the west, Vine Street to the south, and Cannon Street to the north.

\

Found this posted by TivFan elsewhere on the net

Found this on wiki when looking up the Palace theatre

And when Googling the Capitol, I found this about the Tivoli and Capitol

http://www.hauntedhamilton.com/62_ar...theatre_1.html

Capitol , 103 King St. E., 1917- 1971

http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352354283http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352354316

http://mag.gallery.siteseer.ca/album...ta_theatre.jpg

Later Starvin' Marvin's

I love seeing old pictures of Hamilton's movie theatres with the marquee displaying the film being shown at the time. Powell and Pressburger's "I Know Where I'm Going" (1945) in the picture on the left, and Stanley Kramer's "On the Beach" (1959) on the right.

But, yeah... I miss the single theatres with their large marquees. They had a more intimate feel to them. I can't stand these massive multiplexes with huge lobbies and all sorts of noisy games and crap. It now feels more like I'm in an amusement park instead of a movie theatre.

http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352221860
http://mag.gallery.siteseer.ca/album...ry_theatre.jpg
http://mag.gallery.siteseer.ca/album...te_theatre.jpg
http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352748661
http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352623894
http://photos.cinematreasures.org/pr...jpg?1352623967

Thanks, CaptainKirk. Amended. (Imported most of those dates from the linked PDF but York did seem iffy.)

Another cinema lore link.

The Capital and Palace theatres were replaced by the Odeons on King at Mary.

It's nice to see the old pictures. I remember going to many of those theatres as a kid. The Palace was huge. It had 1300 more seats than Hamilton Place. The lobby was very ornate as was the actual theatre.

The Delta theatre at the Delta was another huge theatre that I remember going to and I do remember Starvin Marvins at that location.

There was a theatre on King just East of Sanford which I think was called the Strand which was fairly large and ornate.

Then there was the Cinema, the Avon and the Towne.

There was also a theatre on James N, South of Wilson which still exists and is no longer used. I don't know the name but it was used as a dinner theatre during the 70's and 80's.

I know this totally off topic, but I didn't know what thread to post this under. The old "Federal Building" on James Street North is one of my favourite pieces of architecture in Hamilton. It has a little bit of a Parisian feel to it and I always imagine it being some sort of high-end luxurious hotel or condo-suite tower with dress or spa boutiques at the ground floor.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A_T70whCUAAt8V9.jpg:large