Where many see an unassuming cottage-style roof and stucco walls in two shades of green, Macy Lao sees a space that could house Denver’s film community.
Lao and her husband, Kyle Hagan, have the keys to Berkeley’s historic Yates Theater at West 44th Avenue and Yates Street. The building has sat empty for decades and was last used as a piano shop before the turn of the century.
Lao and Hagan, who live in the bordering neighborhood Sunnyside, hope to be the first people to reopen the Yates Theater in the 21st Century — and to restore it to its original purpose. They just signed a 10-year lease with a plan to combine the theater’s past as a movie theater with Colorado’s burgeoning reputation in the film industry.
“I think there's a real appetite here, and it's highly decentralized,” Lao said, citing the arrival of the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder in 2027, as well as the Denver and Telluride festivals and other smaller events.
Introducing Waystation.
Since it was built in 1926, the Yates Theater has gone by several names — it was once the Rex Theatre and possibly the Coronet Theater — as Denverite found, the history of the Yates is mysterious.
Lao said while the theater will always be the Yates, they’ll do business under another name: Waystation.
She said she was drawn to the name because its origin can be traced to the Wild West, but it also has a science fiction feel to it.
For Lao, the name speaks to the blend of nostalgia and a desire to experience something new she sees in film communities.
“There's this desperate yearning for what the past is, but it's never coming back,” Lao said. “But also that we're here now, in this time, and this is what it is. And it's essentially this kind of combination of the two of those things.”
Lao and Hagan hope to open a 300-seat theater with a bar and lounge in the front. They were inspired by their previous haunts in New York, specifically a now-closed Williamsburg bar, screening room and rental store called Videology.
Lao was previously the head of social media strategy for DC, the multimedia universe that features superheroes like Batman, Superman and the Justice League, while Hagan is a civil engineer by trade.
Lao and Hagan want to contribute to a diverse arts and entertainment ecosystem.
The Yates won’t be the first independent theater in Denver. The Sie FilmCenter is perhaps the best-known. It won’t even be the only one on the street — just half a mile away, the Oriental Theater offers a venue for music, comedy and film.
The prospect of competition doesn’t stress Lao and Hagan out. They don’t even view it as competition — in their eyes, they’re all working toward the same goal.
“I don't think it's a competition,” Hagan, a civil engineer by trade, said. “I think it's a part of building an arts and entertainment ecosystem in Denver.”
Under current plans, the Yates — or Waystation — will screen movies that have already left the box office. Lao said popular movies from the past, like Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” or Billy Wilder’s 1950 dark comedy “Sunset Boulevard”, could make an appearance on their screen.
Plus, with a performance stage, they could expand their offerings to more than just movies. Lao brought up Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles, which has become a launching pad for alternative comedians, as inspiration.
More than anything else, Lao and Hagan want to cultivate community around arts, a scene that took a blow during stay-at-home pandemic orders.
“You can definitely watch stuff at home, but it's way better doing it with other people,” Lao said.
They aren’t the first people to try to reopen the Yates.
Denverite visited the Yates Theater in 2018, during the last serious attempt to reopen the historic venue.
Jerri Theil, a Denver music scene mainstay, as well as developers Ken Wolf and Ari Stutz had a similar vision for a movie theater. That eventually sank because of COVID-related financial issues.
The developers faced pushback from some neighbors at the time over a liquor license — something Waystation will also pursue. Lao and Hagan said they don’t have any concerns about the neighbors, and recently invited the local registered neighborhood organization in for an open house.
But the process will take at least a year. The building is outdated and needs major renovation before it screens its first movie. Plus it needs to be rezoned so they can install the number of seats they desire, which would require Denver City Council approval.
But that’s work the couple is comfortable with.
“There's nothing in entrepreneurship that we haven't done in our regular jobs,” Hagan said. “You know how to do meetings, you know how to do presentations, you know how to organize thoughts and filing and accounting. Between the two of us, we've done all of it.”
