Step into the Palace Theater for an evening movie or musical performance, and take note of the spacious lobby, the intricately designed ceiling patterns and the impressive acoustics. Oh, and pick up a fan as you enter the theater. It gets hot in the main room, even though the high ceilings and special vents were designed to drop cool night air on theatergoers.
But cool night air has been a rarity this summer. So when ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro told a near sellout crowd during his annual Hilo concert in August that a campaign was in the works to bring air conditioning to the theater, the reaction was not surprising.
“He got a huge uproar,” said Wendy Peskin, president of the theater’s board of directors.
The We’re Chillin’ campaign officially launched Sept. 1.
The Palace actually was one of the first buildings in town to have air conditioning — a system was installed after World War II but went defunct in the 1970s, theater executive director Morgan Bahurinsky told the Tribune-Herald.
The theater closed in 1984 and was used as a warehouse until the 1990s, when a campaign to return the building to its stage and screen roots began. In 1999, the Palace reopened. It is now a nonprofit organization.
Since 1999, the board of directors has focused attention on addressing safety and usability concerns in the restored theater — everything from making bathrooms and seating compliant with the American Disabilities Act to tenting for termites and building an in-house cafe.
More recently, the theater completed a campaign to replace the building’s roof.
Having met these challenges, the theater staff and board of directors are shifting direction.
“We want to focus on comfort — the comfort of the patrons and the comfort of the performers,” Peskin said. The first phase was installing larger, more accommodating seats in the theater.
Air conditioning seemed like a logical next step, but the Palace’s electricity bill already was about $20,000 per year. Adding a new system wouldn’t be worth the cost.
The board of directors already had begun discussing installing photovoltaic panels as a way to reduce the hefty electric bill, and it wasn’t much of a jump to see how this could ultimately pave the way for air conditioning.
“It’s one thing to decide to do it, it’s another to figure it out,” Peskin said.
Bahurinsky said the process had been a series of “baby steps.”
“This is a very large space we need to air-condition,” she said. “We’ve been doing a lot of homework.” The theater already has received approval from Hawaii Electric Light Co. to hook up the new photovoltaics.
The PV system alone is estimated to cost $138,000. Air conditioning itself will be an additional $100,000.
So far, the We’re Chillin’ campaign has raised $50,000, with $60,000 more in pledges. The group also is working to secure grants, leaving about $60,000 in community fundraising still needed.
Part of this will be accomplished in more creative ways. Next year, Hilo musician Kuana Torres Kahele (last seen voicing a volcano in Pixar’s “Lava” short) will perform a benefit concert. But small steps can go a long way, too: Bahurinsky noted that more than 20,000 people visit the theater each year.
“Even if each person gave only one dollar, that’s $20,000 (we’d have),” she said.
The campaign also ties in with the Palace’s 90th birthday celebration, set to take place next month. People who donate $90 to the campaign get a “candle” on the handmade birthday cake in the lobby.
“At this point, we’re guardedly optimistic,” Peskin said. Paying for the photovoltaics could be accomplished by early next year.
If all goes well, Peskin said, there could be air conditioning at the Palace by the next time Shimabukuro comes to town.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
