Inside the $40-million renovation of an Art Deco gem in bustling Leimert Park

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Tina Knowles’ nonprofit cultural organization — Where Art Can Occur Theater Center — has a shiny new home in bustling Leimert Park: the 95-year-old, Art Deco, Spanish Colonial Vision Theatre, which is officially reopening to the public this weekend after a $40 million, 20-year renovation.The neighborhood is a place where Knowles has long wanted to be.

She co-founded WACO in 2017 to support performing and visual arts in the Black community.That same year, she attended the inaugural Wearable Art Gala — which benefited WACO.

The party’s theme was “Coming to America,” and Knowles found a shop on Degnan Boulevard in Leimert Park that sold authentic African jewelry and headpieces for the event.(Today, Sika and Queen Aminah’s both fit that bill.)“I fell in love with the area because there was this bookstore there, a Black bookstore, that was just unbelievable,” Knowles said on a phone call from the Hollywood Hills.

“So I used to drive out there to go and eat and to go to the bookstore and to go to the African store, and I just thought it was the coolest place.And actually, my friend Mark Bradford took me in for a sneak peek of the Vision.”Bradford, a visual artist, was born and raised in South-Central L.A.

He used to work in his mother’s Leimert Park hair salon; he later co-founded the art and social services collaboration Art + Practice there.Years ago, he and Knowles slipped through a side door into the Vision Theatre, then sitting unused and in disrepair.

“So it was music to my ears that the city took it on,” Knowles said.WACO officially moved from its North Hollywood headquarters into Vision Theatre last year and is now gearing up to celebrate the reopening in grand style.A string of events, including the premiere of “A Proud Family Wizmas” Christmas special, will serve a...