CINCINNATI, Ohio — For more than a century, the Regal Theater at 1201 Linn St. has towered over the West End as a monument to the neighborhood’s character.
Neighbors watched plays, talent shows and movies, and held event after event within its walls. But by 1996, its doors were shuttered, and the building fell into disrepair.
Now, a former West Ender hopes she can help bring it back to life in a way that speaks to the building’s legacy, serves its neighborhood and honors her father, a longtime West End artist.
Her vision is the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center.
Named for Toilynn O’Neal’s late father, Robert O’Neal, ROMAC serves as a what she calls a cultural hub. She envisions a gallery and performance space for local artists, a gathering space to discuss and engage with art and an educational facility for kids.
O’Neal has already started some of her proposed arts programming across the street at the Lincoln Recreation Center.
“Just the small numbers of kids that we’ve served, and it’s been over 100 kids, through the time that we’ve been there, they’ve never experienced that before,” she said.
The idea came to O’Neal shortly after her father died in 2018. A community activist and educator for decades, O’Neal said she grew up watching him provide spaces like this through his art consortium. She felt it was a fitting tribute to continue that work.
“Every institution he worked for, every center he had. It was all access,” she said. “There were services and resources that were in one space, that allowed people to have dialogue that they wouldn’t normally have. The art was the tool to do that.”
O’Neal saw the Regal Theater seemed like a fitting place for that vision because of its size and her own sense of nostalgia.
“The first movie I saw here was ‘The Wiz,’” she said with a smile. “The woman who managed the theater, she took care of us, about 50 kids every Saturday morning.”
Countless other West Enders have similar stories. When she opened the doors to the shuttered theater for a tour to prospective architects, at least half a dozen neighbors stopped by to ask about her project and share their own memories inside the theater.
“Something about this iconic building, the way it’s shaped, the way it looks, it has a draw,” O’Neal said.
Working in collaboration with the city and the Port, O’Neal expects the stabilization, renovation and conversion project to take at least $13 million, and while she said she’s been fortunate to receive grants from the state and the city, she said much of that budget will have to come from donations and fundraising.
This year, she’s aiming to raise 500,000 so she can match and utilize some of her grant funding.
“It needs to have everybody part of it,” she said.
As a part of those efforts, O’Neal currently has an exhibition of her father’s work at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center where she’s meeting with interested visitors to discuss the project and share her father’s story.
“It’s really been great to see the village that has supported this, which gives me the inspiration to do this larger project,” she said.
O’Neal also plans to have a booth at various summer events in the Cincinnati area, host a fundraiser brunch and add more programming at the Lincoln Center this upcoming fall.
As more people learn about the ROMAC, she’s hoping the community interest translates into support so she can get the project off the ground and open by 2025.
“People make a difference and we can do anything we want to do, particularly when we work together, she said.”