Jul 31, 2008 - 03:58 PM

By Jillian Follert

OSHAWA -- Glyn Laverick looks like he's peering over the edge of a canyon.

Standing on the second floor of the Regent Theatre, he stares down at the main seating area, which is filled with towering mounds of dirt and rubble -- the result of jackhammering out the concrete floor that lie five feet deep in some spots.

"We're making a lot of progress," the theatre owner said during a recent tour of the Regent. "You can start to picture how it's going to look when it's done."

This week, the sidewalk and part of the street outside the theatre will be blocked off so trucks can haul away the floor debris.

From there, crews will get to work creating sloped seating.

The floor was one of the biggest tasks on a long list needed to get the vacant, water-damaged theatre restored and re-opened.

Work has been underway since March, when a chemical peel stripped layers of infamous blue paint from the exterior brick.

There was a slowdown in June when the Ministry of Labour requested a hazardous materials survey and environmental consultants were brought in to check out the building -- but ministry officials gave the all clear and work is continuing now at a brisk pace.

Roof repairs, electrical upgrades and new plumbing are underway, and old plaster has been flattened out to make way for new mouldings.

Upstairs, the theatre office is ready for use with fresh drywall and a new washroom.

At street level, the box office and street-front cafe that once looked like cavernous holes, boast new window panes and framing. And this week a hole will be dug at the main entrance, so a vestibule can be erected.

Despite this long list of accomplishments, there is still a lot to be done before the theatre can be operational.

But Mr. Laverick said many of those are esthetic items, like painting and seat installation, that can be knocked off in a matter of days or weeks once the major renovations are done.

He still plans to beat the Dec. 31 deadline set out in an agreement with the City, saying the venue will celebrate its grand opening in late October.

An exact date and other details of the opening will be announced Aug. 6.

"People get worried when they haven't been through something like this before," he said. "They see the rubble and they can't imagine that it will be a theatre in a few months."

"I might be worried too if I hadn't done it once before," said Mr. Laverick, who also renovated Toronto's Danforth Music Hall and is drawing on that experience for the Regent renovations.

The Danforth Music Hall opened in 1919 and was a thriving vaudeville venue before becoming a second-run movie house.

Mr. Laverick leased the venue and completed a floor-to-ceiling renovation in 2005. The hall has since seen renewed success with well-known names like Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Johnny Lang, Hawksley Workman and Todd Rundgren among its past performers.

When council voted to sell the Regent to Mr. Laverick last fall, he vowed the same level of success would be possible in Oshawa.

He bought the theatre for $700,000, then received a $700,000 grant under the Central Business District Community Improvement Program, essentially snagging the property for free.

Under the agreement with the City, he is expected to comply with strict timelines and performance targets, which include a Dec. 31, 2008, deadline to open the theatre, retaining the Regent Theatre name, hiring an experienced theatre director and staging a minimum of 100 events per year.

A report presented to council last fall said the estimated economic impact of a re-opened Regent Theatre is $1.7 million annually, in 2007 dollars. City staff said that figure is conservatively based on the minimum 100 events per year at 50 per cent occupancy and with no overnight stays generated.