The former Malco Theatre looks almost abandoned from the outside with a tarp hanging in front of the building, but inside tells a different story.
“It has been transformed,” said pastor Jeff Phillips. “Things are moving forward.”
Phillips is the pastor of Legacy Owensboro Church, which bought the 50,000-square foot property, 5333 Frederica Street, summer of 2019.
Since then, construction has made the inside of movie theatre almost unrecognizable.
The box office has turned into a church lobby, the carpet replaced with polished concrete and a small coffee shop will be added.
“I really feel like we will have everything completed, shined up, cleaned up, and ready by the end of June,” Phillips said.
Malco Theatre had 16 auditoriums and some of these on the south will turn into a video-game room, a kids clubhouse, multiple kids classrooms, and a daycare. The south end of the building is kids centered, Phillips said, and it’s where church services and activities have been taking place since the move.
The north side is under construction and closed to attendees, but this is where the fruits of the church’s labor lie.
There are four auditoriums on the north end which will be torn down and combined to make one grand sanctuary that can seat 1,200 people, Phillips said.
“It’s a big project,” he said. “But it’s not just me, and that’s the whole sweet spot of it all. It’s not just me.”
He said this is the vision of the church, but it’s phase two of construction and won’t take place anytime soon.
However, in about a month, one of the auditoriums on the south end will be ready to seat 500 people for church service.
“I’m here every day, and I get to deal with the dirt and the dust… but it’s really a team effort,” Phillips said. “So is it overwhelming? At first, but we’re managing now. We’re beginning to realize we’re fitting in nicely.”
