Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home should have a second cinema screen this year after Rio Theater owner Thomas Baham finishes the remodel of the neighboring building, which became visible to the public last week.
Baham began preparing the new building, 1351 Main St., the former site of Deb and Beth’s Hair and Nail, last year and has begun building a new second-story facade to match the main building, 1439 Main St., along with new stadium seating inside the new building.
Construction of the third phase of the Rio’s ongoing remodel became publicly visible last week with the work on the roof.
“We’ve had a lot of people stopping by, asking what’s going on,” Baham said. “It’s moving along.”
Inside the building, most of the framework for stadium seating is in place. It will include 55 new seats facing toward the back of the building where a smaller film screen will hang.
A hallway will run along the west wall of the building, with a service area and new men’s restroom in the front. The front of the building will also include a service area for drinks and dinner.
The existing men’s restroom will be removed, providing access between the two buildings.
“I’ve been going a lot quicker than I thought,” Baham said. His goal is to have the new screen open by December, but he is three months ahead of schedule at this point and is hoping for a summer opening.
When complete, the Rio will run new movies on the screen after an initial week or two on the main screen, addressing an issue with premiering movies. The theater is required to run movies for set lengths of time, even with attendance falling off after the first couple of weeks.
Baham will be able to bring in and offer more movies more frequently. He will be able to bring in more kinds of movies than he does now, and occasionally, he may run older movies on the new screen as part of special events.
Seating in the new theater will be in recliners, and 12 of them will be set up with table tops on the armrest, allowing the Rio to offer a dinner theater with beer. The dinner will not be available during every showing, but Baham hopes to make it a regular feature.
Coming up, “hopefully next week or the following week, our marquee’s coming down,” Baham said. “We’re putting it back up, but we’re centering it (in relation to both buildings).”
He plans to change the lighting to give it a 1940s-1950s appearance, Baham said. “It’s a huge landmark, and I’m going to make it a beautiful landmark.”