The federal government is providing $100,000 for a million-dollar rejuvenation project at Sarnia's Imperial Theatre.
London North MP Peter Fragiskatos made the announcement at the Christina Street theatre Wednesday afternoon.
He said the Trudeau Liberals see the value of the theatre to Sarnia and the wider community.
"We support arts and culture, we recognize their social value, but also their economic value. Each year, between 60,000-75,000 people come into the downtown because of this theatre and that supports small businesses, that gives an economic boost to the city and economy, so there's a lot of reasons to get behind the Imperial."
Fragiskatos said most of the funding will go towards a new HVAC system at the theatre.
Theatre Executive Director Brian Austin said without the funding, the theatre "would've been sunk."
He said the investment makes certain that they'll complete the first phase of their renovation project.
"We had already committed to doing the washroom renovation and then our HVAC gave up on us, so we were kind of stuck in between a rock and a hard place where we had fundraised the money and we were good to go on the washrooms, but the HVAC put us in a place where we were beyond our means," said Austin. "So this $100,000 coming through means we can still operate and maintain business as usual in the theatre."
Austin said the million-dollar rejuvenation is going great.
"The box office has walls now and we're nearing completion of phase one, which we're hoping to be done towards the end of September, and then that will allow us to move into phase two which is new construction of the ladies bathroom -- we're doubling the size of the main floor bathroom."
Theatre Sarnia’s $1.5 million capital improvement campaign was launched earlier this year.
