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After years of vague talk about establishing a performing arts facility here, there is finally movement… and it could eventually bring the Adobe Theater back to Corrales. At the April 26 Village Council meeting, Village Administrator Ron Curry reported he will move ahead with demolition of the Jones family residence west of the post office. Presumably that is where a new facility would be built for concerts, stage productions, dance and other performances.
To gain input for what would be needed in such a structure, Mayor Jim Fahey will convene a seven-member Performing Arts Task Force to make recommendations. The council is expected to establish that task force at its May 10 session. Curry said he had spoken to a representative of the Adobe Theater who expressed interest in using such a facility. “That was a real plus, hearing from them,†Curry reported.
Actually the Adobe Theater had signaled such interest more than five years ago when it was approached about the possibility. But that was back when such a “black box†performance space was discussed for inside the old Corrales Valley Fire Station, just west of the Community Center. That has since been remodeled for the Planning and Zoning Department and Animal Services.
The renovation came after the Village Public Works Department relocated from the old fire station to the Jones family land between the post office and the recreation center’s TopForm Arena. Village officials wanted the last remnant of the Jones property to accommodate all the Public Works heavy equipment, such as graders and dump trucks, but had little notion what to do with the family home.
From the beginning, they thought the best option was to tear the home down and use the space for another purpose. And that was what Curry relayed to the mayor and members of the council April 26, explaining that its floor plan is not conducive to public meetings or performance spaces —and it had asbestos and other toxic materials which made it unusable for public functions without expensive remediation.
The Adobe Theater was started in Corrales in the 1950s, when it was called the Corrales Adobe Theater and staged productions in the Old Church. It leased the old, de-sanctified and deteriorating church from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
At some point, the troupe staged plays in the building where Prized Possessions is now.
I surely hope when this arts center comes to pass that it acomidates other village groups to use as a community center type meeting rooms. I am a 4-H project leader and would be sorely disappointed if other groups in the village would not be able to use this facility.