Four 4,700-pound steel beams were meticulously lifted into place atop Cranbrook’s Armond Theatre roof today.

Here’s a look at the process from the arrival of the beams and crane to the lifting of the beams onto the roof.

The massive effort involving PJB Crane Services Ltd. of Sparwood and True Newfie Trucking out of Cranbrook forced closure of 10th Avenue South between Baker Street and 1st Street South, with a throng of onlookers and media in attendance to witness one of the largest construction exercises in years in the downtown of the city.

“This is a big moment for us. Once we’ve completed all the required structural upgrades to the roof system, then the hounds are loose and the entire project turns overnight into a high-speed interior renovation,” explained Armond Theatre co-owner Ferdy Belland (pictured below letting onlookers know the show was underway).

“Not only does this project mean something big to the Cranbrook community’s ongoing downtown-revitalization / post-industrial-transformation efforts, but we hope to play a substantial role in the post-pandemic reconstruction period of Western Canada’s live-entertainment industry,” he said.

Built in 1952 on the site of the old pre-war Cranbrook Auditorium (a famed Vaudeville venue), the Armond Theatre was Cranbrook’s main cinema (and one of the prime nightlife features of the downtown core) until 2000, when parent-company Landmark Cinemas opened the multi-auditorium Columbia Theatre in Tamarack Centre.

The Armond was closed and sat silent for the next two decades, at times hosting trespassing squatters before finding new life with the current ownership.

Belland said he is hopeful the entertainment venue will be opened to the public “somewhere between September 2022 (optimism) and March 2023 (pragmatism).”

Lead image: Armond Theatre owners and renovators Spencer Kerr, Ferdy Belland and Casey Wright outside the downtown landmark this morning. Ian Cobb/e-KNOW photos

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