East Lyme – The end of an era on Main Street is opening up new possibilities as a team of Ivy League planners and architects helps sharpen the focus on the future of the popular downtown-with-a-view.

The owners of Niantic Cinema this week announced the closure of the shoreline mainstay after 70 years. Across the street, the former police station has been vacant since the force moved three miles down the road to a new public safety hub early this year.

The Yale Urban Design Workshop, made up predominantly of graduate students supervised by faculty from the School of Architecture, was hired several months ago for $30,000 by the Niantic Main Street downtown revitalization group. The goal is to create a framework for development, much like the group did in the late 1990s with a report that laid the foundation for a quarter century of growth.

A cornerstone of efforts back then was the recommended purchase by the town of a Mobil gas station and its subsequent transformation into a park that frames sweeping vistas of Niantic Bay.

The Yale academics now are familiarizing themselves with the current landscape, where a mural over the marquee of the shuttered cinema commands the eye with a sad-faced silhouette of Charlie Chaplin evoking the mask of tragedy.

Andrei Harwell, director of the Yale design group, lamented the loss of the cinema but was philosophical about the timing.

“I wouldn't say it's fortuitous, but it’s not bad timing, I guess, that there appear to be some new opportunities opening up,” he said.

Harwell is also an architect, urban designer, and Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture.

The Yale urban design group spent the last four months on background research and talks with those who live and work in the area, according to Harwell.

The collaboration with Niantic Main Street is funded through federal pandemic-relief dollars allocated to the town for purposes including economic development.

Harwell’s team will be meeting virtually with Niantic Main Street steering committee members later this month to gauge their thoughts on the best use for the old police station and the cinema building.

He said the next step is putting together designs to illustrate the different options.

“It’s not really up to us to make the decisions, of course,” Harwell said. “It’s up to folks in Niantic to do that. All we’re really doing is trying to show them what the alternatives might look like.”

For Niantic Cinema owner George Mitchell, the future is wide open.

“We’re thinking about so many things,” he said. “Everything from community theater to tearing the whole thing down and putting something completely different there. That’s the range.”

Mitchell owns about a half dozen other downtown properties with several buildings on each one. Included is the Niantic Village Shopping Center, which has retail space, offices and restaurants on the first floor and apartments on the upper level.

He said there are no decisions yet, but a lot of ideas.

“People are calling and telling us what we should do,” he said.

The businessman described himself as most interested in hearing what advisors from the Yale Urban Design Workshop recommend.

“That’s what we’re waiting for,” Mitchell said.

Former police headquarters

Town officials also await the urban planners’ guidance when it comes to the police station leased for years from Millstone Power Station owner Dominion Energy. First Selectman Kevin Seery said the utility company is willing to part with the property for $1, but the Board of Selectman doesn’t want to move forward until they have a better idea what it could be used for and how much it might cost to remediate the site.

The police dumped their moldy old home in favor of the $7.4 million public safety building that also includes dispatch, emergency operations, a lockup area for prisoners and the fire marshal’s office. The vacant Main Street building, now largely devoid of furnishings, has been used for random purposes like narcotics training for the regional police canine unit and as a stop along Niantic Main Street’s Holiday Stroll.

The first selectman said Dominion agreed to put the sale on hold “for a few months” while the downtown revitalization group and the Yale experts investigate the options.

“Obviously the building has to go,” Seery said. “It has asbestos, it has mold, it has lead paint. The cost of repurposing or renovating that building would be astronomical. So that’s not an option.”

Seery said he’s met with one unnamed company that uses virtual “portals” to unite different cities around the globe, including two so far in Lithuania and Poland.

The website for a company matching that description said it’s seeking participation from cities and towns with public spaces, such as parks, that are suitable host sites for the real-time video images ensconced in looming circular sculptures where art meets technology. The feed provides a real-time glimpse of unedited video from rotating locations.

Harwell said other ideas for the site include a range of public and private uses from a visitor’s center with restrooms, to a restaurant, to shops below and apartments above.

Planning for the future of the property in a way that acknowledges possible contamination could also put the town in a better position to receive state Brownfield grants for remediation, according to Harwell.

He anticipated being able to advise the downtown revitalization group and public officials on possibilities for the two key sites as early as next month even though work will be ongoing through the spring.

“The completion of the study means the production of the report, but along the way we’ll be producing alternatives we’ll share over time,” he said.

Niantic Main Street Vice President Sue Kumro said the collaboration between her group and the Yale experts is in its “early infancy stages,” with more opportunities for public input to come over the next six months or so.

The most pressing needs in her view revolve around public restroom facilities and more parking with space for special events and farmers markets.

“I just think we need a welcoming center in Niantic,” she said. “That’s what Niantic is about.”

e.regan@theday.com