ANN ARBOR, MI - There's excitement in the air and a lot of boots on the ground inside downtown Ann Arbor's historic State Theatre, where modern upgrades and retro throwbacks blend together.



Now less than two days away from its grand reopening following a year of renovations, crews are busy putting some final touches on the newly restored theater on State Street.



Restoring some of its original art-deco look and feel from the 1940s, crews are painting walls red and green and laying down new carpet to match, replicating the original carpet from 75 years ago.



Other workers are finishing up electrical work and installing cinema equipment, lighting and more.



While the four new theater rooms appear close to finished, with seating and other fixtures in place, other areas such as the art-deco lounge still look very much like an active construction zone, cluttered with buckets, boxes, furniture wrapped in plastic and other materials and equipment.



There's a new elevator that's still being tested, and an escalator that's not yet operational. Wooden boards stand in for railings for now.

"A lot of the bells and whistles will be in for our opening on Dec. 8 and we'll get some other kind of decorative flourishes in the weeks to come," said Russ Collins, executive director of the nonprofit Michigan Theater, which owns the State Theatre.

A new entrance and staircase takes patrons up to a restored art-deco lounge and concession area, where banquette seating hugging the curved walls -- seating that had been taken out in the 1950s, according to Collins -- has been replicated and replaced.



The theater also went to great lengths to recreate the original carpet pattern and colors based on old photographs, as well as from a piece of the old carpet that local historian Susan Wineberg had.



"We had this little piece which allowed us to know exactly what the scale of the pattern was. You couldn't get that from the photograph very easily," Collins said, explaining how it was digitally redesigned and then printed onto white nylon carpet in a manner similar to putting a piece of paper through an inkjet printer.



John Umland, the State Theatre's manager, was on hand at the concession area on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The stand is relatively bare at the moment, but some important pieces are in place, including the popcorn popper, soda machine, bar taps and a retro cooler.



"The inspiration for this space -- you'll see it when it's finished -- was we wanted to capture a 1940s-era lounge or bar feel," he said.



"What we're trying to create is a space where people gather before or after their movies to talk. So we want a place for people to not only come watch movies and be at movie events, but to gather and talk about them, and this is where you're going to get the snacks and the drinks to help fuel those conversations."

Nawal Motawi of Motawi Tileworks in Ann Arbor designed a decorative tile pattern that surrounds the theater's new drinking fountains, drawing inspiration from the theater's original color palette.





The four theater rooms are separate in their designs, but all were inspired by architect C. Howard Crane's original designs.



Theater one is the largest of the four with 133 seats. Theater two has about 100 seats. Theater three has about 50 seats. And theater four has about 80 seats. Custom wooden end panels have been installed on the seats at the ends of aisles.



Among the most eye-catching features inside the theater rooms are the decorative wall sconces that are recreations of the original ones the theater had when it first opened in 1942.



Alex Porbe of Incite Design in Detroit recreated them based on old photos, taking liberty in redesigning the fixtures in layers, laser cutting aluminum with a special brass coating, illuminated with LED lighting that shines through layers to create a prism effect.



The new seats inside the theater rooms are red and green with high backs. They're reconfigured to increase comfort and legroom.



Each of the four theaters is named in recognition of major donors whose names are displayed in large gold letters above the entrance doors. That includes Martha Darling and Gil Omenn (theater one), Laurie and Tim Wadhams (theater two), the Buhr Foundation (theater three) and Michael Suzi Coghlan (theater four).



Dozens of others are recognized throughout the building for donations that supported various aspects of the project such as movie projectors, custom theater lighting fixtures, a donor wall overlook, concession stand, popcorn popper, stairway to theaters three and four, mezzanine lighting fixtures, banquette seating, hearing loops, entry staircase, individual theater seats and accessible seating areas.



The Towsley Foundation and McKinley Companies are among the donors prominently featured on a donor wall near a new glass overlook offering a view down Liberty Street.



"We're very, very grateful to the community," Collins said of the money raised for the project, calling the support outstanding.





The Michigan Theater bought the State Theatre cinemas in 2014 to preserve and improve them. Renovations started in fall 2016.



The goal of the theater's capital campaign has been to raise $8.5 million, including $6.5 million for the State Theatre and $1.5 million for improvements to the Michigan Theater, plus about $500,000 for soft costs such as architectural and engineering work.



"We had expected to raise $8 million by the time the State Theatre opened," Collins said. "I'm happy to say that we've actually raised $8.15 million and we will be doing work at the Michigan Theater this summer, so we ... still expect to complete the campaign. So we're very much on track in terms of community support."