THREE OAKS – The Vickers Theatre, which for 26 years has developed a niche for showing independent films and arts in the heart of Harbor Country, went up for sale just over a month ago.
But though it still shows movies and has no plans to close, sole owner Judy Scully said she hopes the next owner will continue that tradition — and make more of it.
Aged 81 and in her 13th year as an owner, she said Thursday she likes the job but is willing to hand down the day-to-day chores.
“I think it needs new eyes,” she said. “The Vickers was meant to be more than movies. We did (other entertainment) but not regularly.”
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Both he and Scully said they can’t limit what the next owner does with it.
“Anyone I’ve spoken to in the community would love to see it stay the way it is,” said Zarantenella, who has lived in Three Oaks full-time for the past 13 years.
He said it has already attracted a lot of interest from potential buyers, both local and overseas. But when dealing with her agents, he said he doesn’t ask what her clients would do with the property.
Stockbroker Ron Zarantenella of Three Oaks of At Properties/Christie’s said the sale will include the 3,722-square-foot building at 6 N. Elm St. in downtown Three Oaks and its 126-seat theater with a main floor and balcony as well as service facilities affairs and equipment. The asking price online is $450,000.
Founded in 1996
Jon Vickers and his wife Jennifer, an artist, opened the theater in 1996. Two years earlier they had seen a For Sale sign outside this building, which has been a coach house and cinema since it was built, in 1890. They bought it and developed a dream by renovating for two years.
“We were pretty naive going into it,” Jon Vickers told The Tribune for a 10th-anniversary story. “We started out as a kind of hobby shop, and it has completely changed our life and work.”
They quickly realized that there was a backlog demand for an art cinema in the area. This earned Jon Vickers such a reputation that the University of Notre Dame hired him to direct the Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
Scully bought the theater in 2010 along with her husband Joe after both retired from their Chicago jobs – Joe as President and CEO of the St. Paul Federal Savings Bank and Judy as a professor of public health at Loyola University. They moved to Michigan 20 years ago and Judy Scully still resides in the nearby town of Lakeside. Joe died in 2016.
The theater now has nine employees, including Scully, all part-time. She said audiences come from communities along the Lake Michigan shoreline and from the South Bend, Valparaiso and Chicago areas.
Off-Screen Offers
The theater used to have small one-person performances and hosted young, up-and-coming directors to talk about their films. But to make this type of effort viable again, she said, “You need a marketing director.”
“I hope everyone who buys the theater will consider the options for it,” she said.
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The theater still displays the works of visual artists on its walls and changes the exhibition every two months for a total of five artists per year. It used to have a different artist each month, but Scully said, “It was too much work.”
Before the pandemic, she had spoken to a musical theater owner in the area about teaming up for a film and wine festival. She knows there are more such opportunities.
“You get a sense of pride in owning something so beautiful that people like,” she said. “There are many positives to anyone who owns this.”
survive the pandemic
Scully said she is beginning to meet with some of the interested parties to answer questions that have arisen about the business, how the staff, the finances and how the theater has weathered the pandemic.
The Vickers closed for a full year when COVID struck, but Scully said it survived so well thanks to the loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic.
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“We don’t have the numbers we had before COVID,” she said of admissions, noting visitors who are still hesitating because of COVID and also film distributors holding back several titles.
Still, she said, the pandemic also allowed the Vickers to get certain blockbusters.
“Before COVID, we would never have gotten ‘Top Gun,'” she said.
Tom Cruise’s hit remake Top Gun: Maverick drew 101 viewers – a number the Vickers hadn’t seen since the pandemic.
The Vickers had carved a niche for themselves by focusing on small, independent films.
But Scully said that in recent years it’s gone beyond that and started offering popular blockbusters because “you can’t make money if you don’t have big movies.”