The outdoor clothing and gear company Patagonia will open in the spring of 2020 in the former Old Town Theater.
“We’re thrilled to be in Old Town, and we look forward to opening our doors in Spring 2020,” Corley Kenna, Patagonia spokesperson, wrote in an email to Alexandria Living Magazine this week.
Construction started on the space late this summer. The company is planning to honor the history of the Old Town Theater as it repurposes the building.
Patagonia started as a small company that made tools for climbers. The company now makes clothing for a number of what it calls “silent sports” – climbing, skiing and snowboarding, surfing, fishing, mountain biking and trail running.
The closest Patagonia store to Alexandria is in Georgetown, though several other stores sell Patagonia products, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, REI and Nordstrom. There are 33 Patagonia stores nationwide spread across 18 states and the District. Alexandria will be home to Patagonia’s only Virginia location.
According to the Office of Historic Alexandria, the Old Town Theater opened as the Richmond Theater in 1915. The 1914 permit indicated the space would be used for “moving pictures, bowling alleys and billiards.” (Estimated cost of construction according to the original permit application: $7,500.) In addition to an entertainment arena with a dance hall, the space served as a community meeting space, classroom space (in 1915) and more.
Renovations started in 1929, including the addition of the electric sign and interior upgrades. As vaudeville lost its popularity, the venue became a movie theater.
It became the Richmond Playhouse in the early 1960s with live performances again, but closed in 1972. In 1976, it reopened as a puppet theater, closed again, and opened as a two-screen movie theater in 1980. That closed in the late 1990s.
The next 15 years were a series of openings and closings for what had become the Old Town Theater: It opened as a comedy venue for several months in 2002, closed, and then opened in February 2004 as a movie theater. It closed yet again in early 2012, opened as a live-performance and event venue, and closed again – for the last time – in 2014. Jeffrey Yates bought the building in 2015.
After he passed away, the Yates trust sold the building to Asana Partners for $4.4 million in 2017, according to City of Alexandria real estate records.
