The County Theatre in Doylestown, Pennsylvania has been a feature of the downtown area since 1938, back when it was a one-auditorium operation. The County Theatre has run continuously since it first opened, only closing for a brief period in the 1990s when ownership changed and a second auditorium space was added. Then in the 2010s the owners purchased the property next to the theatre with plans to convert it into another auditorium and join it to the original County Theater. DCI engineers helped design the next structure for the third auditorium, using steel beams to frame the building and connect it to the original structure. The new space not only added the 175-seat auditorium, but new concessions stand and lobby area, with custom lighting based on what the original theatre would have had. The theatre now has a rehabilitated basement with a new elevator and a second story micro-theatre room. We designed the County Theatre’s new addition with CMU foundation walls for easy installation of the blue metal screen on the second level of the addition, which visually connects it to the original theatre and blends in with the blue and yellow porcelain tiles on its entrance and marquee.
• Underpinning was done to the existing theatre building’s structure to increase the basement ceiling height from 7-feet to 10-feet.
I appreciate the collaboration process of what we do. There are so many different people in different disciplines—contractors, architects, developers, owners, engineers—that are taking a concept, an idea that is sketched-out, and turning it into a physical piece of the built environment.”
