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Timothy Klusczinski, President, Historic Preservation Commission— Sep. 17, 2012 page 17 this becomes a financial loss to SJCPL and the source of a possible legal action against the Historic Preservation Commission and the City of South Bend. In the same year that the Library purchased the Avon Theatre from Downtown South Bend, Inc. (2007), the South Bend and St. Joseph County Historic Preservation Commission dropped the Avon Theatre from its City of South Bend Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. The Avon was no longer listed and has not been listed in its official inventory of historic sites and structure of South Bend. When the Library purchased the Avon Theatre from Downtown South Bend, Inc. in March 2007, up to that point DTSB had owned the building for 20 years (1987 — 2007) and had made several attempts to repurpose the building. The studies of the Lerner Theatre in Elkhart, the Morris and the State in South Bend found that that these theatres could be major attraction or destination places if they were renovated in conjunction with the addition of a multi-purpose reception/meeting/ballroom space that could support both theater and hospitality events. The narrowness of the Avon makes this impossible and can really serve only one purpose, that of a movie theater. South Bend Civic Theatre learned this in 2004 and backed away from its Avon plans, accepting the offer of the owners of the Scottish Rite building on N. Main Street. The days of the single screen movie house are long gone and are not likely to come back anytime soon. The public meeting room space for the new Main Library are varied for different size audiences, and except for its auditorium, have no fixed seating. Even the largest meeting room in its new building has a level floor with no fixed seating and a portable stage that allows the use of the room for banquet events and for sit down, participative children's programs like those that we have each year during our "Open Book Festival, etc. The meeting rooms planned would serve multiple purposes for both Library -sponsored programs and for public use. This concept has worked out very well for public services and events held at the present Main Library building. At times all of these varied meeting rooms have served different purposes for different programs, all going on simultaneously. This approach has been very successful, especially when the Main Library holds major events that draw thousands of people, such as Science Alive, Open Book Festival, One Book, One Michiana, and the Library's Annual Summer Reading programs. One single auditorium -style theater with fixed seating that holds 1,000 people on two levels with a very small stage would not fit the multiple purposes for which SJCPL's public meeting rooms are being used by both the library and by the public. Recent examples of the renovations and repurposing of a single function movie theatre in LaPorte confirm that such efforts have been futile and would be a waste of public tax dollars. The LaPorte Cinema, for example, just closed for the third time after many tries and lots of expenditures and has no prospects of being reopened despite all the dollars that previous owners have spent on it. This was a relatively modern 4 -theater facility that should have succeeded. It didn't. In fact during the 20 years that Downtown South Bend, Inc. owned the Avon, I've been told that it made several attempts to repurpose the theater. The City of South Bend was active in putting together business models for the Avon and offered to give to any potential purchaser a three-year property tax abatement. Other attempts came Recipient of the 2009 Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence www.libraryfqrlife.org