City had only two choices for Lynn: accept GEDC recommendation or start over

When the Gonzales City Council met Thursday, Jan. 19, to discuss the fate of the Lynn Theatre, they had only two choices they could make: accept (based on the recommendation from the Gonzales Economic Development Corporation) a proposal from the partnership of Sydney Allen and Devon Warzecha to purchase the theatre or reject it and start over again.

While some in the audience at the meeting wanted the council to instead choose an alternate proposal being floated by a group which includes Doug and Dave Durham, Dennis Kaiser, and Susanna Sontani-Telford, that was actually not an option for the council at the time, GEDC executive director Jennifer Kolbe told the Inquirer after that meeting.

Instead of having a formal bidding process, which would have involved simply taking bids for the theatre and then awarding the bid to the "best and highest bidder" based upon what was submitted, the GEDC hired a third-party real estate brokerage firm to market and sell the venerated theatre.

Under this process, the firm that was selected, Phyllis Browning Co., sought proposals and brought back three, which included the ones from Allen-Warzecha and the Durham, Kaiser and Sontani-Telford group. Those proposals were scored based on criteria established by GEDC, which then made a recommendation to go with the Allen-Warzecha proposal after hearing all three proposals.

That does not mean, however, the sale is fully completed at this time. Both sides must still complete their due diligence, agree upon a sale price and the terms and conditions that must be met satisfactorily, including how long it will take before the building is open again as a business. If the city believes a sale is unable to go forward, they can back out of the deal and start the process of looking for a buyer over again.

Kolbe told members of the council last month the sale of the Lynn is taking into account that the theater would be restricted as an entertainment venue and “the marquee will be preserved.”

“We would like to work with the buyer to have a designated deadline or an option to repurchase should they not be able to perform,” Kolbe said.

GEDC has owned the property, which was built in 1947, since it was foreclosed on in February 2011 after previous owner Cal Collins, a San Antonio businessman, failed to make repayment on thousands of dollars in loans from the GEDC.

Since that time, the Lynn has reopened twice under different management — once more under Collins in 2011-2012 and under Cliff Anderson from 2012 until the theatre closed in 2020 due to financial difficulties right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit.