Theater conversion

Dark for years, Gateway Cinema is reawakening as a congregation works to open the movie theater as its new church.

The River Church bought the west Kalispell landmark several months ago after lots of prayer and lots of due diligence into a troubled but rock-solid building, Pastor Paul Arends said.

The church wasn’t happy with the layout of its building on West Reserve Drive and it was starting to have some concerns about the Stillwater River out back.

“All of a sudden, three years ago when we had that flooding, we were watching trees drop off and fall into the river. All that summer it continued to slough off, and then more and more,” Arends said.

An engineer told the church it would cost at least $250,000 to stabilize the river bank, and warned that would be no guarantee of a permanent fix. The river could reach the church 20 years from now or tomorrow. 

The church eventually decided to list its building for sale to test those waters. 

It had three offers in two weeks and sold to Eisinger Motors. “We’d been weighing it and praying about it. It just felt like God was saying we needed to make the move. Of course, we didn’t even know where we were going to go,” Arends said.

Arends thought immediately about the Gateway Cinema. 

He had seen “The Passion of The Christ” and a couple of other movies at the theater before it closed in 2007. “Every once in a while I would just drive around and look at that big building and say what a shame, this thing sitting empty. It would make a really great facility,” he said.

Arends talked to a Realtor who warned him to look elsewhere: The theater had a failing roof, asbestos problems and was in the flood plain. 

“I took his word for it and just took it off the list,” Arends said. 

But the church found its other options limited and expensive. 

Arends decided to drive by the theater again a couple months later. “I just felt like God brought this building back to mind and said, ‘Go back and look at it.’ So I came back and got out and looked through the windows.”

The church contacted Phil Harris, the building’s owner. Harris offered to sell the six-theater building for “a remarkable price,” Arends said.

The church decided to take a closer look. 

A survey found the theater is actually two-thirds of an inch out of the flood plain and overturned that impediment. An interior assessment found the feared asbestos was limited to some easily removed flooring tile glue in the front concession area, which is envisioned to reopen as a coffee shop. And the theater’s roof wasn’t as bad as initially thought. 

The church made a final offer and got the property for “less than the cost of a house,” Arends said.

“We did all the due diligence everyone else was not willing to do and a lot of praying about it,” Arends said.

The theater still is a big project to renovate and reopen. It was covered in graffiti from top to bottom. People had broken in and smashed windows and movie projectors. For years it was a magnet for drug use and other illegal activity. 

The congregation has been holding work days every Tuesday and every weekend as it tries to move into the theater later this fall or early next year. Church members have done about as much cleaning and demolition work as they can do and plan to hand the project off to Bison Builders.

“We’ve cleaned up a lot of stuff,” Arends said. He added that the church’s congregation has been laboring away at the project with a Bible verse from the Book of Isaiah in mind. “It says, ‘And they will restore the desolate places.’ We feel God gave that to us with this building, that we’re going to partner in seeing that happen and that it really is going to be a blessing to the community.”

Other people have noticed that restoration starting to take effect. 

The church is connecting with social agencies at Gateway West Mall to start discussions about how everyone can work together in the future. Neighbors have walked up and said they’re happy to see the theater getting fixed and reopened and the parking lot lights turned back on. 

“The site manager for the mall came over here and said since you guys came in and turned the lights on and trimmed the trees, all the negative activity associated with the building has dropped 100 percent,” Arends said.

Arends said the goal is to find the church’s new home and to redeem a property many people in Kalispell have fond memories of.

“We think God saved this building for us and we hope it will feel like a this big open door to the community, that people will come back into the building,” Arends said. “We’re just excited and blessed and working hard.”

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.