PHOTO | LOWE'S

Mattie Marshall, president of the Washington Heights Neighborhood Association, right, inspects the mural painted by artists Makayla Binter at the Ritz at Washington Heights. The public gathering space debuts Saturday with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m., followed by the grand opening celebration from 3-6 p.m.

Fifty years after the last movie was shown, cinema is returning to the former Ritz Theater site.

Saturday’s public reveal of The Ritz at Washington Heights as a community space coincides with transformation of Historic West End. The ribbon cutting ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. followed by a grand opening celebration from 3-6 p.m. with music, food, and movies.

The new park and community plaza at the corner of Tate Street and Beatties Ford Road sits on a parcel formerly occupied by the Ritz Theater, the last of four movie houses built exclusively for Black audiences in Charlotte along with the Lincoln, Savoy and Grand between 1920-60.

“This project is important to me because it will transform a vacant parcel into an education destination hub to confront and address social, economic, education, health disparities and preservation of history and culture,” said Mattie Marshall, president of the Washington Heights Neighborhood Association. “The Beatties Ford Road corridor is home to incredibly significant institutions and landmarks that are central to the identity of Charlotte.”

The 500-seat Ritz, located at 1201 Beatties Ford Road, was built in 1961 and closed 10 years later after the passage of federal laws banning segregated public facilities. It was later demolished and the land sat unused.

The Ritz project was selected from more than 2,200 entries for a $200,000 Lowe’s 100 Hometowns grant. The city of Charlotte earned the grant to update public space through the Planning, Design & Development Urban Design Center, which worked with West End residents to identify a suitable location.

The city contributed another $50,000 to the project from its Corridors of Opportunity program. Lowe’s volunteers contributed sweat equity and materials to convert the lot into a community gathering spot.

“This project is so important to me, because the Beatties Ford Road corridor is a collection of incredibly strong and vibrant neighborhoods that have been overlooked for decades, often not receiving the investment that they should from the public sector or other funders,” wrote project Erin Chantry, an urban designer and principal planner with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Urban Design Program who nominated the project. “I am excited in my role as a public servant to co-create this project with the community to reflect their identity, passions, and commitment to future generations.”

The Ritz faded away from view, but it’s a colorful, if long-forgotten chapter of Historic West End history. The historically Black corridor is home to some of Charlotte’s most significant social and education institutions and landmarks, such as the Excelsior Club, Johnson C. Smith University, West Charlotte High School and Northwest School of the Arts.

A piece of that era’s movie history still survives: The Grand, located across from the JCSU campus at 333 Beatties Ford Road, is intact.

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