In the courtyard of Nickelodeon Theatre’s new Main Street home, the Nick’s Capital Campaign Chair Larry Hembree and Executive Director Andy Smith flip through an old file of what were once “future” plans for the cinema. Today, these plans are a reality.

“One of our campaign goals was to grow the audience by 10%. Boy, did we do that,” Larry chuckles.

In 2007, the Nickelodeon, Columbia’s nonprofit cinema, launched the $5 million Capital Campaign to move the theater from its current location to downtown Main Street in what once housed the Fox Theater.

The Foundation supported this effort from its beginning. With the help of our Organizational Impact Grant, the Nickelodeon was able to lay the framework for their future growth. 

“This grant was key,” Larry says. “We were able to bring someone in to look at this project and review all areas that we needed to focus on to move forward. We didn’t know where to go before this strategic planning process.”
 
Through donor funds, the Foundation has since given more than $56,000 to the Nick’s Capital Campaign.
 
The Nick, which has focused almost solely on movie exhibition since its founding, faces a more expansive future, one that reaches further into the community. Andy and Larry identify two sectors upon which the Nick will develop, the first being education and the second being filmmaker services.
 
Today, the Nick’s new home is still filled with construction tools rather than people, popcorn and movies, but you would think otherwise if judging the impact its presence has already made on Main Street. Andy and Larry smile as they discuss the Nick’s projections. They believe in this project with their hearts and, as the glint in Andy’s eye indicates, believed in it long before anyone else accepted the project as a reality.
 
“National statistics show that, on average, the addition of a second movie screen brings about a 110% increase in sales,” Andy says.  “Our current space is so constraining that the new space will free us up to have even greater growth. You’re talking, at a bare minimum, 50,000 more people coming to Main Street every year. I can’t say enough about what this move is going to do for us.”
 
The new Nick, this economic driving force in the revitalization of Main Street, is coming soon. Construction continues, and fundraising for the Capital Campaign continues as well. The Nick is currently finishing up phase one of construction.
 
Both construction and fundraising are about halfway to their goals, however. Residents can still help create the space that we will all be proud to call the home of South Carolina’s nonprofit cinema. Visit movethenick.org for more information.
 
“The ‘if’ question about this project is gone,” Andy says. “Now, it’s when is this going to happen?”
 
The Nick’s new marquis, with neon colors and changeable letters, reminiscent of the past yet groundbreaking for the future, will soon light Main Street. The people and organizations of Columbia will ensure that it happens, and this is as it should be, for the Nickelodeon and its directors have worked for the benefit of this community since its founding.