Old Ruskin Theater could become hub of community again
By PENNY FLETCHER
After many years of being called “an eyesore,” the two-story Spanish-style building at 408 N. U.S. 41 in Ruskin is slowly on its way to becoming a hub of the community once again.
Its new owners say they are fixing it up to be the Event Hall residents may rent for their weddings, parties and large meetings, and they hope even more as time goes on.
After writing a column that appeared in The Observer News Jan. 5 issue in which I quoted Kenneth Faulk’s memories of attending his first movie there in the 1950s when he was just a grade schooler, I received many e-mails about the poor condition of the building and the public’s wishes to find out who owns it and what is going to be done about it.
For example, Michael Miruzzi commented, “Your article on the eyesore old movie theater on 41 in Ruskin told us everything except what most of us want to know. How long will that building will be allowed to make our cute town look like a nightmare?”
While Dave Curry wrote, “Thank you for the article on the old Ruskin building since I have continued to wonder about what it was. But more importantly, during your investigation did you find out who owns the building, or is (sic) there any plans for the future?”
The thing was, all I did was write a column about the good memories “old timers” from the area had about the theater. I hadn’t done any investigation, or thought about doing one until the e-mails started coming in.
I have lived in South County since Jan. 1980, and as far as I know, that building has been vacant the whole time. I wondered how long it had been vacant before that.
Yes, it is definitely time to find out.
First I spoke with Jim Harkins of Sun City Center, knowing he had once been on Hillsborough County’s Historic Resources Review Board.
“Many years ago, I was sent to Los Angeles to a conference to learn more about historic preservation,” Harkins told me. “I was on the (historic resources review) board then, and we were trying to see what buildings should and could be preserved for historical significance.”
The board was the working arm of the Hillsborough County Formal Historic Review Committee, he said.
“We tried and tried to get that building under our umbrella, but we couldn’t find out who we needed to contact to do it,” Harkins said. “We never could.”
So, I started my search, beginning with Morgan Spalding in the county’s information office who got me a formal platted address and directed me to the county’s various websites. After trying to put the address into the property assessor’s site and getting “no such address” three times, I wondered if perhaps the code enforcement board had an active case going. Surely if people were writing me about the run-down condition of the theater, they were complaining to them.
So I contacted my old source for code enforcement, Bill Langford, who I found out had been promoted to another job. But Langford, as always, helped anyway and within three hours, I had spoken with enforcement worker John Page and Director of Code Enforcement Ron Spiller.
They said the new owners were A&M Mortgage Management and gave me a phone number, which as it turns out, is right in Ruskin.
“They’re working on it,” I was told by code enforcement. “It isn’t in compliance yet, but things are being done.”
They even gave me the contact I needed to call, Vernon Dana Esparza, who is running the renovation project with her husband Erasto Garcia.
Garcia is the owner of A&M Mortgage Management Inc., the theater’s present owner, based in Ruskin.
“We’re working on it as money permits,” said Esparza. The Event Hall could even be completed by the end of this year,” he said. “We are working on it steadily.”
For those who want to find out more, call A&M Mortgage Management Inc. at 813-645-5838.