THE UPTOWN: an icon in Washington, DC. “90 years old and “reborn.”

The Washington Post: The Uptown Theater, Cleveland Park’s historic art house, lives

The couple behind Artechouse aims to undertake an ambitious effort to blend old-school Hollywood with 21st-century technology.

By Kyle Swenson

The marquee of the Uptown Theater in November 2001. The Cleveland Park movie

theater opened in 1936 and closed in March 2020. (Dayna Smith/The Washington Post)

The Uptown Theater, the historic Cleveland Park art deco movie palace that has been shuttered since March 2020, is being revived under new management with ambitious plans.

Sandro Kereselidze and Tatiana Pastukhova, the husband-and-wife duo behind Artechouse, an experimental art venue combining technology and the visual arts, have inked a 20-year lease on the space. The new proprietors are calling the project “UPTOWN Experiences,” although the concept is still in the early planning stages.

“My vision for this is really to bring back the old glamorous Hollywood feeling of going to the theater, but with the latest technology,” said Kereselidze. He said he expects it to be a “multimillion-dollar project.”

“We believe the visionary leadership of Sandro and Tati, along with their talented team, will redefine the 21st-century cinema and theater experience,” Circle Management Co., the property owner, said in a statement. “This innovative concept is set to attract audiences from near and far, revitalizing the Cleveland Park neighborhood.”

According to Kereselidze, the 800-seat Uptown has a special place in his life. Kereselidze, who was born in the Republic of Georgia but landed in D.C. with his family in the early 1990s, said he remembers going to the Uptown with his filmmaker father. The first film he saw there was 1993’s “Jurassic Park.”

“Seeing the Uptown empty really broke my heart,” he said. “It’s a beautiful building that really speaks to that true Hollywood glamour.”

The Uptown was built in 1936 by Warner Bros., and for decades the location has not only held premieres for big-budget films like 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” but also become a celebrated anchor of the Cleveland Park neighborhood.

In the 1970s, brothers Ted and Jim Pedas purchased the Uptown and ran the historic landmark for decades along with a handful of other local art houses. National chain AMC Theatres operated the property before announcing that the Uptown was shutting down in March 2020. Although no official reason was given at the time, the theater industry was then facing a dramatic economic downturn due to home streaming services — trouble only exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The property has been empty ever since, leaving neighbors and Uptown fans concerned about the theater’s future.

“I didn’t want to see it become another CVS or gym or something else in that space,” said Kereselidze.

Harry Potter fans line up at the Uptown in November 2001 for a special screening of
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” (Frank Johnston/The Washington Post)

That was a fair concern, as the Washington region has seen classic movie houses shuttered and their valuable real estate converted into different uses. The Biograph in Georgetown opened in 1976 and closed in 1996. The location is now a CVS. Not far from the Uptown, the 1,000-seat MacArthur Theater in the Palisades had shown movies since 1946. In 1997, the theater — which had hosted the world premiere of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” in 1979 — closed. It is also now a CVS.

Kereselidze said he and Pastukhova are just beginning to think about how the Uptown can be revitalized.

For example, he would like to install a high-tech screen that would be three times the size of the previous one at the Uptown. “We really want to have something that’s bespoke and gives people an incredible visual and cinematic experience,” he said.

He does not yet have a timeline for when the property will be ready for audiences.

“It’s an ambitious project and not an easy project,” he admitted. “It will be a lot of work.”