AKA: Metropolitan Performing Arts Center, Downtown, Spokane, WA; Crosby, Bing, Theatre, Downtown, Spokane, WA

Structure Type: built works - performing arts structures - theatres

Designers: Houghton, E.W., and Son, Architects (firm); Kirtland Kelsey Cutter (architect); Edwin Walker Houghton (architect); Gordon Thomas Augustus Houghton (architect); Frederick Phair (building contractor)

Dates: constructed 1914-1915

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901 West Sprague Avenue
Downtown, Spokane, WA 99204

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Overview

This theatre was set within a larger three-story office building, located on the southwest corner of Sprague Avenue and South Lincoln Street.

Building History

Designed by the English-born, Seattle architect Edwin Walker Houghton (1856-1927), who developed a specialty in theatre design, the Clemmer Theatre in Spokane, WA, opened on 02/22/1915. The Clemmer Theatre could accommodate about 800 patrons originally, and was known under several names including the "Audion" and "State."

The facility was renamed the "Metropolitan Performing Arts Center" in 1988 and the "Bing Crosby Theater" in 2006, after the entertainer Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr., (1903-1977). Crosby had been born in Tacoma, WA, in 1903, but moved to Spokane as a three-year-old and lived there through college age.

PCAD id: 23942