Regal Theater Restoration & Cincinnati’s Creative Economy

Cincinnati Isn’t Just Building an Arts District, It’s Reclaiming Its Creative Infrastructure

September 4, 2026 | DAC Harmony Grove

For nearly three decades, the Regal Theater stood silent in Cincinnati’s West End.

A building that once brought movies, music, entertainment and community together became another reminder of what can disappear when neighborhoods change and cultural institutions lose their place within them.

Now the lights are moving one step closer to coming back on.

Construction has officially begun on the restoration of the historic Regal Theater, launching a nearly $13 million redevelopment that will transform the long vacant building into the home of the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center.

It is an important preservation project.

But Cincinnati should see it as something more.

The restoration of the Regal represents an investment in creative infrastructure and creative infrastructure determines whether a city simply has artists or actually has an industry capable of supporting them.

More Than a Theater

The Regal’s history stretches back more than a century.

The building opened in 1914 as the Casino Theater and was renamed the Regal in 1941.

With approximately 1,500 seats, it served the West End through film, vaudeville and live entertainment.

During the 1940s and 1950s, audiences could see films during the day and hear jazz musicians performing late into the night.

The theater also occupied an important place within Cincinnati’s African American cultural life.

At a time when segregation restricted where Black performers could appear and where Black audiences could participate fully in the city’s entertainment culture, venues such as the Regal provided something beyond entertainment.

• They provided space

• Space to perform

• Space to gather

• Space to build community

• Space to be seen

The Regal eventually closed in 1996 and remained vacant for decades.

Now its next chapter is beginning.

Preserving Culture While Building Something New

The renovated Regal is expected to become the home of the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center, an organization dedicated to celebrating, advancing and preserving African and African American culture through arts, history and education while supporting the region’s broader community of artists.

Plans extend beyond restoring an old auditorium.

The redevelopment is expected to provide space for theatrical, musical and arts organizations, along with co-working and entrepreneurial space.

That distinction matters.

Cincinnati isn’t simply restoring a building so people can remember what happened there.

The city is creating a place where new work can happen.

That is preservation at its strongest.

History isn’t frozen behind glass.

It becomes the foundation for another generation.

Creative Cities Need Creative Infrastructure

Every city claims to value creativity.

The harder question is whether the infrastructure exists to support the people doing the creating.

Artists need places to perform.

Musicians need places to record and rehearse.

Filmmakers need production resources.

Designers and creative entrepreneurs need places to work.

Young people need opportunities to encounter professional creative environments.

Independent companies need collaborators.

Communities need spaces where audiences and creators can actually meet.

Without that infrastructure, talented people frequently face a familiar choice:

leave or struggle to build everything themselves.

Cities with sustainable creative economies do something different.

• They develop ecosystems

• Theaters connect with performers

• Performers connect with producers

• Producers connect with filmmakers

Filmmakers connect with composers and sound professionals.

Creative businesses connect with agencies, brands and institutions.

Education connects with professional opportunity.

One organization doesn’t create that ecosystem.

Neither does one theater.

But each serious piece of infrastructure makes the network stronger.

Cincinnati Already Has the Talent

The argument for investing in Cincinnati’s creative economy shouldn’t begin with whether talented people exist here.

They do.

The larger challenge is creating enough professional infrastructure, opportunity and connectivity for that talent to remain here, develop here and build sustainable careers here.

That is particularly important as Cincinnati and Ohio continue positioning themselves within film and television production.

Productions arriving in the region need more than locations.

• They need crews

• They need production companies

• They need editors

• They need composers

• They need sound designers

• They need engineers

• They need performers

• They need facilities

And they need an existing creative community capable of supporting the work before, during and after production.

A theater and a production studio serve different purposes.

A gallery and a recording facility serve different purposes.

A filmmaker and a choreographer practice different disciplines.

But collectively, they form something much more valuable:

a creative economy.

Why the West End Matters

There is another reason the Regal restoration deserves attention.

Where creative development happens matters.

Cincinnati’s West End experienced enormous disruption through urban renewal, highway construction and redevelopment.

Buildings, businesses and gathering places that once helped define the neighborhood disappeared.

The Regal survived.

Its restoration therefore carries responsibilities beyond economic development.

A historic Black cultural institution shouldn’t return merely as an attractive piece of real estate.

Its history should remain part of its identity.

The people and culture connected to that history should remain visible.

And the next generation should be able to create new memories inside a building carrying the ones that came before them.

That appears central to ROMAC’s mission.

From Creative Talent to Creative Economy

Cincinnati has several ingredients necessary to expand its position within the creative industries.

• It has musicians

• Filmmakers

• Artists

• Designers

• Actors

• Production professionals

• Universities

• Arts organizations

• Historic architecture

• Film incentives

• Performance venues

• Independent creative businesses

And an identity that doesn’t need to imitate Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta or Nashville.

The next step is connectivity.

The stronger the relationships become between those pieces, the less Cincinnati functions as a collection of individual creatives and the more it begins operating as an interconnected creative market.

That difference is enormous.

An artist can create something.

An ecosystem can create opportunity repeatedly.

The DAC Perspective

At DAC Harmony Grove, we believe creative infrastructure deserves the same seriousness as the work produced inside it.

• Studios matter.

• Theaters matter.

• Production facilities matter.

• Arts organizations matter.

• Independent creative businesses matter.

And preserving spaces with genuine cultural history matters.

DAC Harmony Grove establishing its creative studio and production headquarters in

Downtown Cincinnati is one small part of a much larger ecosystem taking shape across the city.

The Regal Theater represents another and one with more than a century of history behind it.

These spaces don’t have to compete with one another.

They strengthen one another.

A healthy creative economy requires places where artists can develop ideas, places where those ideas can be produced and places where audiences can ultimately experience them.

The restoration of the Regal Theater therefore represents something larger than another Cincinnati redevelopment project.

It represents the possibility of reconnecting history, culture, creativity, entrepreneurship and opportunity under one roof.

The question isn’t whether Cincinnati has creative talent.

The question is whether we are willing to build and preserve the infrastructure that allows that talent to stay, grow and create here.

The Regal’s next chapter suggests that answer may increasingly be yes.

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