Listen up, skeptics. George Altamura has done it.

After a decade of missed deadlines and delays, Altamura will reopen the Uptown Theater May 14 as a dazzling venue for live musical performances.

No longer a movie house, the Uptown will open with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, then go into summer with such major draws as country legend Merle Haggard, pop singer Shawn Colvin and the Robert Cray Band.

“We’re spending whatever it takes to make this a magnificent theater. You can see that nothing is chintzy,” said Altamura, who considers the renovation of the 850-seat theater to be his greatest legacy.

With the Uptown’s reopening just two months away, Altamura gave a short tour last week of the work-in-progress. A painter with Broadway experience was putting the finishing touches on wall decorations, while workers on scaffolds framed the stage with ornamental ribbons of plaster.

The reborn Uptown, featuring heavenly ceiling murals and eye-popping art deco decoration, will be far fancier than when it opened in 1937, said Altamura.

Although he owns large swaths of Napa commercial real estate, including Napa Town Center and a Coombs Street tannery, Altamura said the theater restoration would be his crowning accomplishment.

“We’re doing something that will be a work of art,” he said.

The Uptown is reopening at a time when the economy is still ailing and a high percentage of his other holdings sit empty, but Altamura said he is willing to take the economic risk.

It’s noteworthy, he said, that downtown has several new hotels and riverfront amenities. Just as significant is his advancing age.

“I’m 79. What more do you want? (Wait) til I’m 84 or 85? I’ll be dead,” he said.

Altamura, who used to bring dates to the Uptown in the 1950s, said he intends to make the Uptown a top concert venue for the North Bay, with name performers who will draw fans from the entire Bay Area.

It’s possible that the Uptown could show an occasional movie, but that’s not in his immediate plans, Altamura said.

The Uptown is opening nine years after Altamura and cinema legend Francis Ford Coppola announced they were teaming up to reverse the theater’s sad decline. Before closing in 2000, the movie house had been carved into four Sheetrocked spaces for second-run films.

In an interview last week, Altamura refused to discuss what role Coppola might have today. He said his only partners for the reopening were Bob Vogt and Tim Herman of Napa.

County property records show that Coppola has half ownership of the Third Street theater as a trustee for the Coppola Family Trust. 

Coppola’s New York publicist did not respond to a request for comment.

Worth the wait

Because the restoration has taken years longer than promised, many people were skeptical that the Uptown would ever open.

When she first heard of the May opening, Cassandra Walker, the city’s redevelopment manager, said she asked herself, “Which year?” 

“Our expectations had gotten lower and lower as time went by,” Craig Smith, executive director of the Napa Downtown Association, said. 

Impressed by what he saw during a tour, Smith said Altamura has more than redeemed himself. “It’s been a long wait, but it’s been worth it,” he said.

Tourists complain that there isn’t enough nightlife in the Napa Valley, said Clay Gregory, president of marketing and tourism agency Destination Napa Valley. 

For many visitors, the Uptown should be just the ticket, he said.

Smith said he was impressed that Altamura had hired people with expertise in booking talent and running a theater. “They have the right people working on this,” he said.

Elizabeth Rush, an experienced New York booking agent, has been on the job since fall. 

Sheila Groves, who booked talent for 15 years for the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, will manage the Uptown.

Tickets for shows starting May 14 should go on sale through Ticketmaster starting March 16, Altamura said. 

The Uptown’s full line-up of acts will be announced soon, he said.

For some people, anticipation of the Uptown’s reopening was muted by concern that Altamura’s project could undercut two established venues, downtown’s Napa Valley Opera House and Yountville’s Lincoln Theater.

Mayor Jill Techel said she felt protective of the Opera House.  “It would be sad to have the Opera House, which I think has struggled a bit, to have even more troubles because of the competition,” she said.

Yet the Uptown should help to energize downtown, Techel said. “Hopefully it will spark new business and fill some stores,” she said.

“Hopefully they won’t butt heads with the Opera House,” Craig Smith said. With luck, having two major entertainment venues in downtown will expand the audience that comes here, he said.

Rick Reiger, who operates Headfeathers hair salon next to the Uptown and hosts blues concerts in the summer, said, “I just don’t see how they can all survive.”

“The city looks forward to working with George to make this successful as he brings 800 visitors per night,” Cassandra Walker said. Concertgoers will help fill restaurants, she said.

Walker expressed concern about where Uptown patrons would park, but Altamura said this shouldn’t be a problem. 

Shows will be at night after government workers have cleared out. The city’s new Fifth Street parking structure is only a few blocks away.

In its heyday, the Uptown had 500 more seats, yet parking somehow worked, he said.

The Uptown is shrinking from 1,350 seats to 850 to accommodate a larger stage and today’s larger derrieres, Altamura said. The original seats were 

16-17 inches wide. The new ones are 21-23 inches, he said.

Besides hosting touring bands, the Uptown will be available to local nonprofit groups for their events, Altamura said. Local bands will be recruited to test the theater’s sound and light systems in April before the professional acts come to town, he said.

Jacqueline Altamura, George Altamura’s granddaughter, and Lisa Holt, a designer, consulted on the Uptown’s new decor package. 

Even people who knew the Uptown in its heyday will be surprised at what George Altamura has wrought, Holt said. “It will be this absolute jewel,” she said. “It will really blow people’s minds.”

“When the community steps into that space, all will be forgiven,” she said.