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Historic place

Tampa Theatre

711 N Franklin St, Tampa, FL

Tampa's first air-conditioned commercial building was nearly lost in 1973, and it is still showing movies under a painted night sky.

📅 1926–present🏛️ TheaterStill here
Open on the mapSlide back to 1926

The story

The Tampa Theatre opened on October 15, 1926, at a cost of $1.2 million. John Eberson designed it as an atmospheric movie palace, with an interior like a Mediterranean courtyard, statuary, gargoyles and a painted ceiling of a night sky with stars. It was the first commercial building in Tampa with air conditioning.

In the 1960s and 1970s many movie palaces were torn down because the land became worth more than the theater business, and in 1973 the Tampa Theatre faced the same fate. Citizen committees and city leaders stepped in and the city took over its leases. The Arts Council of Hillsborough County ran it, and it reopened in early 1978, the same year it joined the National Register of Historic Places. After a 1991 fire the Tampa Theatre Foundation led a restoration in 1992. A Cinema Treasures commenter says the theater closed on May 20, 1976.

What's There Now

It is a nonprofit movie palace showing independent, classic and first-run films and hosting concerts and events.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

It was the first commercial building in Tampa with air conditioning.
B.B. King played there nine times.
A Mighty Wurlitzer organ is played before nightly films by volunteer organists.

Nearby history

The Hub Bar

719 N Franklin St · 21 m away
A downtown Tampa dive that traces itself to 1949 and moved into its Franklin Street building in 2002.

Franklin Theatre / Florida Theatre

710 N Franklin St · 46 m away
A theater named in a $50 public contest in 1924 was cleared with its whole block in 1978 for a power company headquarter

Maas Brothers Department Store

700 N Franklin St · 50 m away
Tampa's hometown department store started with a 23-by-90-foot shop and ended as a parking lot after the condos never ca

S. H. Kress and Co.

811 N Franklin St · 88 m away
A five-and-dime in terra cotta, closed since 1981 and the subject of at least four failed redevelopment plans.

Victory Theatre / Palace Theatre

700 N Tampa St · 130 m away
A vaudeville house that became the only Cinerama theater within 500 miles and ran The Sound of Music for a year and five

Federal Building, U.S. Courthouse and Downtown Postal Station

601 N Florida Ave · 136 m away
Tampa's post office, courthouse and custom house, finished in 1905, is now a Le Meridien hotel owned by the city.

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Theatre