The Coachella Valley Repertory may soon call Cathedral City home
The Coachella Valley Repertory, the theater that has called Rancho Mirage home for the last five years, may soon be packing up and hitting the road moving to Cathedral City.
C’s Ron Celona confirms that they entered into an agreement with City Urban Revitalization Corporation to purchase the IMAX Theater and the connecting restaurants.
“We don’t have an operational live theater like that in the city,” said Charlie McClendon, city manager for Cathedral City. “Part of the City Councils strategy for revitalizing the downtown area is to use events and arts the bring people here that have never been here before,” McClendon said.
“It’ll bring more exposure to Cathedral City, it’s bring more art to Cathedral City, and it will bring a lot of people who frequent that type of theater who come from the other side of the valley. We get kind of passed by as people go from the east side of the valley to Palm Springs,” said Hector Salvatierra, owner Bont restaurant. If the deal goes through CVREP would own the entire building including the two restaurants next to the theater and become landlords for Salvatierra.
According to Celona, they have a two year option to come up with the funding necessary to raise funds, buy the land and building and build out the IMAX property to a legitimate state of the art “playhouse”.
Celona says it has always been his goal since starting CVREP was to have their very own playhouse facility. The theater and the two restaurants will continue to operate until the money is raised.
The capitol campaign will be starting soon, so look for another announcement in the coming weeks.
