Fresh Loaf

Buckhead’s Roxy Theatre will receive an $8 million makeover to replace its well-worn carpet and dilapidated, bare-floored auditorium with a posh lobby and new concert hall, complete with balconies and box seats. That’s the good news.

The bad news – at least for rock fans – is that, after its grand reopening, the Roswell Road venue isn’t likely to play host to acts like the Cure, Sonic Youth and Phish, as it has over the past two decades.

So says Charlie Loudermilk, the octogenarian Aaron Rents CEO who’s owned the building for many years.

“I’m not into the ring-in-the-nose culture,” he says. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but that’s not the type of shows we’ll have. It’ll be more upscale entertainment.”

Loudermilk says he imagines artists like Tony Bennett, Jimmy Buffett and even personal fave Charlie Daniels taking the stage in the refurbished Roxy – a format change to reflect the swanky retail district that will replace the downtrodden Buckhead Village across the street.

The furniture-rental magnate had planned to rechristen the building the Buckhead Theater, its original name when it debuted as a second-run movie house in 1930. But he was persuaded to keep the current marquis by executives from condo-builders Novare, who plan to use the Roxy name for a residential tower next door.

Novare, which bought the strip of storefronts just to the right of the theater, had wanted to acquire the Roxy as well, but Loudermilk instead decided to restore it – more, he says, out a sense of nostalgia than a desire to make money.

“I remember going to see cowboy movies there when I was 10,” he says. “The Roxy is about the only historic thing Buckhead has left.”

After 30 years, the Buckhead Theater (not to be confused with the Buckhead Cinema, a nearby porno theater) was renamed the Capri and began showing first-run movies. It was a Cinema & Drafthouse in the early ’80s and finally became a live-music venue around the end of that decade, capable of holding an audience of just under 1,000.

The old auditorium will be demolished because of its rough condition and the fact that it’s contaminated with lead paint and asbestos, Loudermilk says. The bare, concrete floor will be outfitted with plush fixed seating and the space in front of the stage will be left open for dancing or tables. The upstairs rooms that now contain offices could be redone as a dinner theater space or a reception hall, depending on the demand. The building’s familiar Spanish Baroque façade will simply be spruced up.

“If it’s not first-class, I don’t want anything to do with it,” says Loudermilk, who also sees the venue hosting corporate events and special movie screenings.

Construction will not begin until early next year because of an arrangement with longtime promoter Peter Conlon, who is likely to continue booking shows at the venue – although of a different kind from when the Roxy brought such rock bands as Soundgarden, Social Distortion and Blur to town.

But Conlon doesn’t sweat the change.

“What does ‘rock’ even mean these days?” he says. “The Roxy will probably host mainstream, contemporary acts, but it’ll have the ability to be more flexible.”

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