Wilma Building in Missoula for sale

Owner says profitability too difficult to maintain

Just under nine years ago, Tracy Blakeslee bought the Wilma Building with dreams of revisiting the
theater’s glory days.

By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

Blakeslee has now awakened from that dream. And the building, which sprang to life in 1921 in the
heyday of the so-called "picture palaces," is for sale.

"It didn’t really turn out the way I hoped it would," Blakeslee said from his Portland, Ore., office on
Tuesday. "I wanted a fabulous restaurant and gorgeous apartments, but that’s not what happened."

For a while, Blakeslee had the restaurant – Marianne’s at the Wilma. But the restaurant closed earlier
this year, on the heels of a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by its namesake, chef Marianne Forrest.
That lawsuit was settled out of court and the agreement was not disclosed.

Blakeslee had made some headway in renovating the theater lobby, and he’d closed small theaters in
the basement to make way for two bars, the Green Room and Red Light Bar.

"Basically, I’ve done what I can do and I’m ready to move on to another challenge," said Blakeslee,
who also owns the two Fantasy for Adults shops in Missoula.

Although Blakeslee has kept the main theater open for movies and concerts, its most successful
recent use had been as a forum for club boxing.

"More than anything, that’s the thing that seems to have made people the happiest," Blakeslee said.
"You’d see people coming out of there with smiles on their faces in the way that you never did when
they came out of the symphony or something else."

Even so, Blakeslee said he needed everything to fall in place to produce a profitable month.

"We’d need to have a hit movie, like ‘Crouching Tiger (Hidden Dragon),’ a couple of concerts and
boxing," he said. "That would make for a good month with a profit, but that doesn’t make 12 months."

Although the building will be for sale – it will be listed by Bill McQuirk of Lambros Realty at a price
available to qualified bidders – Blakeslee said he’ll continue to book movies and concerts. And he’d
definitely like to draw boxing back to the theater.

"We’re looking forward to next year in terms of booking shows, and we’ll honor them even if we sell
the building," he said. "We’d like to get the boxing back, but it may have become too successful for
us to hold it."

In a way, boxing is a metaphor for Blakeslee’s disenchantment.

"The boxing became an economic fact of life," he said. "But it’s not what I envisioned with the
property."

Blakeslee bought the Wilma at the end of 1993, taking over from Edward Sharp, who died just weeks
before the sale closed, and Sharp’s partner, Bob Sias. The Wilma opened in 1921, and Sharp had run
the theater for 50 years before his death.

Blakeslee said the next owner will likely be from out of state.

"Missoula has a lot of cache, but it doesn’t have a lot of cash," he said. "Who knows what the market
has in store for us? Who knows who’s out there?"

Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at [email protected].

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