CRANDELL THEATRE SALE IN THE WORKS

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

05-13-10 - 2:00 p.m. - The Chatham Film Club has apparently lost out on its bid to purchase the Crandell Theatre, but officials are still hopeful that the historic theater will remain home to the popular FilmColumbia Festival.

Film Club President Sandi Knakal told ccSCOOP this week that the club’s effort to purchase the Main Street theater was unsuccessful since the the estate of the late theater owner Tony Quirino has reached agreement with another buyer. Knakal said Chatham businesswoman Judy Grunberg is heading a group of investors purchasing the theater, however, Keith Flint, the attorney representing Quirino’s widow, Sandra Quirino, declined to comment. Grunberg could not be reached for comment. “There’s a sales agreement with another group that is headed by Judy Grunberg,” said Knakal. “That’s what we have been permitted to say.”

Knakal said the Film Club is in discussion with Grunberg, an arts supporter and owner of PS21, about continuing the longtime FilmColumbia Festival—a staple of October in the county—at the theater.  The club also has monthly Sunday matinee viewings of art films and foreign films. ‘We have had very preliminary discussions with her [Grunberg] with regards to our involvement with the Crandell Theatre,” said Knakal. “We are very much hopeful that we will have film festival in October."

The Film Club was one of three entities to express an interest in purchasing the theater after Quirino’s sudden death from a brain aneurysm in January. The club had arranged a partnership in 2008 with Quirino and was working on a deal—announced in 2008—to purchase the theater and have Quirino continue to manage operations.

A Main Street fixture since the 1920s, the theater had been in the Quirino family since 1961 and has been operational since the days of vaudeville. The Film Club had intended to maintain the theater as a commercial venture, showing first-run, commercially successful films daily, while also offering its art fare during the monthly matinees and the yearly film festival. As late as March, the Film Club continued to make public appeals to raise $1.5 million to purchase and renovate the theatre.