326 South Tate Street: Originally a movie theatre, then a bookstore, and soon a theatre crafts space for the College of Visual and Performing Arts at UNCG
The former Addams bookstore on Tate Street has been bought by UNCG. The university plans for the College of Visual and Performing Arts to use it for theatre crafts, including the production of costumes and props for stage productions.
Dr. Peter Alexander, dean of the college, said the building will not be used for performances. It will replace a building on campus that will be torn down for a new building for the School of Nursing.
“It’s a great location for us,” he said this morning in a telephone conversation. The theatre program’s two performance spaces, UNCG Auditorium and Taylor Theatre, are a block away on Tate Street.
“It will take quite a bit of renovation, but the bones of the building are good.”
The building drew attention from a variety of businesses, said Brian Burnham, the agent for the seller. Various buyers’ interests included using it as a night club, music venue or pool hall, but the seller wasn’t interested in such a use.
“The owner wasn’t willing to do that to the neighborhood,” Burnham said.
The bookstore closed in February 2014, a victim of the shift of book sales from stores to the internet. The building was built in 1938 as a movie theatre. It anchors the Tate Street business district at the north end and sits almost on top of the property line it shares with the house at 324 Tate Street.
Why does UNCG want another school of nursing building when the one on GateCity & Elm has just been completed?
That building at Gate City and Elm is a joint campus for GTCC, A&T, UNCG and Cone Health. It’s not nearly big enough to house UNCG’s entire nursing program, and will just house a newish Doctor of Nursing program for UNCG. I get the sense that GTCC will use that building more than any other group.
And the on-campus nursing building at UNCG is quite old and quite cramped. A new nursing building makes a lot of sense.