Empty for decades, this historic MS Coast theater could get a new future

The old theater is dark and empty, its rows of seats long gone.

It has been that way for decades, bought and sold by buyers with plans that have never worked out in the years since the last wild western flickered across its screen.

Now, the historic A&G Theater in Bay St. Louis is for sale again.

“But I want to find the right developer,” said owner Jim MacPhaille, “who has the wherewithal to do something nice.”

The city is hoping a sale could finally transform the Spanish Colonial Revival building into a venue worthy of the history that began when movies first played there in 1927. The theater hosted audiences of hundreds to watch Technicolor pictures and old stars such as John Wayne until it went defunct sometime around the 1970s, when real estate agent Margaret Hayden bought it because she could not bear to think it might be torn down.

In the years since the theater’s screen went dark, all that opened there was a sno-ball stand.

The building, said Historic Preservation Commission member Steve Haas, “was always just sort of a vacant ghost.”

MacPhaille is hoping it will not stay that way for much longer. He would like to sell to someone who might turn it into a live music and entertainment venue that would attract names from across the region. He said he is getting interest but has not yet found the right buyer. But MacPhaille does not want it to become just another bar or restaurant.

“We don’t need more of the same,” he said.

Bay St. Louis theater is historic

The theater is on the National Register of Historic Places and was one of few buildings on Beach Boulevard to survive Hurricane Katrina. But it stayed empty even as a new row of bars and restaurants blasting country music rose up around it after the storm.

Nearly a century after the theater became an anchor of the waterfront commercial district, it appears to be one of the only properties left behind in the latest wave of development.

“It just radiates opportunity,” Regan Kane, the real estate agent, said this week from the building, where the fading wall has exposed brick, and birds chirp from the rafters. “It’s really one of the last opportunities on this beachfront to redevelop.”

When it opened, the city heralded the theater as a modern economic anchor for the neighborhood. It had an organist and later advertised movies including “The Best Things In Life Are Free” and “Sands of Iwo Jima” on paper programs printed in bright color. Newspaper reports from 1927 show it had two entrances for segregated audiences in that era. The faded outline of steps, which apparently led to the mezzanine, are still etched on its wall.

The building’s awning, balcony and marquee are gone. But its sloping floor and tall ceilings remain. MacPhaille, a New Orleans developer behind 200 North Beach Restaurant and Bar and several other Bay St. Louis businesses, put it up for sale in April. He is also selling the nearby building that once housed Second Street Elementary School. It, too, has long been vacant.

The A&G theater was built for $60,000 nearly a century ago.

It is now listed for $2.2 million.

If it does not sell, MacPhaille said he has designs that could turn it into a movie theater, entertainment venue, or shops.

“It’s always been there as sort of an icon of the Bay,” Haas said. “We’re hoping that somebody brings it back to life.”