£50,000 THEATRE WILL BE BUILT AT OTAHUHU

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 392, 28 June 1928, Page 15

£50,000 THEATRE WILL BE BUILT AT OTAHUHU

TO SEAT 1,600 PEOPLE

BLOCK OF SHOPS AND FLATS Plans have been prepared and tenders v/ill shortly be called for the erection of a building in Otahuhu to contain a modern picture theatre, seven shops and a block of 10 flats. When completed the value of the property will be £50,000. ■With frontages of 100 feet to the Great South Road, 200 feet to Station Road and 100 feet to Queen Street, the site of the buildings is a valuable piece of land, and Otahuhu Amusements, Ltd., who have held it for four years, in anticipation of their project of building this block, consider it to be now worth £IO,OOO. The seven shops and main entrance to the theatre face on the Great South Road and, with a frontage of 100 feet, will make an imposing facade. At the opposite end of the building on the Queen Street frontage will be the block of 10 self-contained flats pleasingly built round an interior garden court. The theatre proper is estimated to cost £25,000. It has been designed in accordance with and even in advance of the latest ideas in theatre construction, and incorporates in its constructive scheme many innovations entirely new to New Zealand or Australia. The lobby leads from the Great South Road to a spacious lounge 80 feet by 20 feet on the ground flour. Designed in the Adams style and fittingly furnished, this lounge will be one of the distinctive features of the theatre, and runs almost the entire length of the auditorium on one side. AN “INTIMATE” THEATRE To seat 858 people, the contour of both the ground floor and the circle has been designed so that the seating is “intimate.” In other words, every patron, whether in stalls or circle, is close to the stage. A feature of this type of almost square auditorium is that there are no pillars to obstruct the view. The seats are to be installed in shallow curves, so designed that each member of the audience is looking straight at the stage and does not have to crane round the head of the person in front of him. The stage .will be 30 feet by 80 feet and is so designed that the largest grand opera can be played on it with ease. Ten dressing rooms are in-

cluded in the scheme, and a modern lighting plant and facilities for hanging scenery are included in the stage fittings. Probably most charming of the many features to evoke admiration in the plan prepared by the architect, Mr. A. Sinclair O’Connor, is the noble proscenium and arch with two attractive boxes on either side, as illustrated. Tho proscenium opening will be 32 feet wide by 25 feet high, and will be surmounted by a panelled and vaulted arch elaborated with a pierced design, which will be aided in effect by subdued lighting. THE CIRCLE Leading from the lower lounge, a2O feet wide marble staircase will open on to another lounge, with entrances to the balcony at two levels. This part of the theatre is 80 feet by 50 feet, and will seat 642, thus making the total seating accommodation 1,600. On this floor provision is to be made for cloak-room accommodation also. The projecting box, which is to be erected immediately under the balcony, will be fitted with over £I,OOO worth of machines and accessories. Certain optical advantages are to be gained by having the box in the position that has been assigned to it, as it is not necessary for the gaze of any patron in the theatre to pierce a ray of projected light when watching the screen. An electrical heating system and forced ventilation will further add to the comfort of the audience, whose safety will be catered for by the provision of six exits which will enable a full house to be cleared in five minutes. Tenders are being called for immediately, and Mr. A. W. Andrews, manager of Otahuhu Amusements, Ltd., hopes to have the contractors under way at an early date. “The theatre,” he says, “will be erected to catei’ for southern suburbs of Otahuhu, Middlemore, Papatoetoe and surroundings, and we are confident that our faith in the progress of these districts will be more than justified.”