BREMERTON — Susan Young has been to a lot of movies at the Roxy Theatre since it was restored and reopened last year. Young said she sees at least a movie a week, depending on what’s showing, and usually gathers a group of friends to go with her.

But there’s a limit to how much time she can spend sitting in one of the theater’s stiff 1940s-era seats.

“I didn’t go to the Woodstock documentary because I couldn’t fathom sitting in one of those seats for four hours,” Young said.

An improvement in comfort arrived this week, thanks to the installation of around 215 new seats on the Roxy’s main floor. The seats are part of a round of upgrades for the theater that also includes new stage sound and lighting.

The new seats look visually similar to their predecessors, with red velvet cushions and armrests, but they feature quality-of-life improvements like cupholders and expanded legroom.

Young was one of the first to try them out on Thursday morning, with positive results.

“They didn't lose size in terms of the seating area, but they figured out how to make a seat more comfortable without being as thick as they used to be, as bulky,” Young said.

The project cost about $100,000 and was funded fully by donations, according to Michael Goodnow, chief operating officer of Far Away Entertainment, which runs the Roxy. The new seats were paid for by a $50,000 donation from First Federal Bank, a Washington State Department of Commerce Building for the Arts grant, and individual donations.

The new stage lighting won’t affect moviegoers but should be a boon for the Roxy’s live shows and performances. Until now, acts have mostly had to supply their own sound equipment.

“When the community wants to use it for live shows or music, it’s going to help that kind of stuff,” said Goodnow, a Bremerton city councilman who also sits on the board of the Roxy Bremerton Foundation.

The upgrades are the next step in the ongoing renovation and revitalization of the Roxy, which spent most of the last 30 years shuttered. Local developer Sound West Group bought the theater in 2015 and spent about $1 million cleaning it up inside and out — replacing old carpet, fixing up the theater’s marquee sign, and installing a new sound system.

Next on the theater’s wish list of improvements is a new HVAC system. The Roxy has heat, but the lack of AC can lead to some stuffiness during the warmer months. A full system is likely to cost an additional $150,000, Goodnow said. The goal is to eventually be able to replace the seats in the theater’s balcony as well.

The theater’s future is being managed by the nonprofit Roxy Bremerton Foundation, which contracts with Far Away to run the day to day operations.

But the long-term goal has always been for the foundation to “stand on its own legs,” Goodnow said. In the future, the Roxy may have its own staff and director, but first it must raise enough money to purchase the building back from Sound West.

“We’re working on some larger grants but to be honest it’s going to take community support,” Goodnow said. “We want this to be a community place and the community would own it through the nonprofit.”

In its first year, the Roxy has averaged about 1,000 attendees a month. There have been days when only one or two people show up for a movie. But overall, the Roxy is trending in the right direction, Goodnow said. One vision of the future sees the Roxy as a community staple in downtown Bremerton and as an anchor for the city’s Quincy Square project on Fourth Street.

“We’re hoping to be a venue that’s between a show that comes to the Admiral and a show that comes to the Manette Saloon,” Goodnow said.

Young agrees. Over the year-and-half that she’s been watching movies at the Roxy, she's seen the attendance slowly increase.

“I understand it takes time to build up an audience and to find those people who become pretty loyal about going there, but I think they’re on their way,” Young said.