Owner Of Midtown Theatre Renovating For New Tenant

SEATTLE - The old Midtown Theatre X-rated movie house by the Pike Place Market is getting a face lift.

New owner Anais Winant is restoring the 1906 brick building at 1923 First Ave., which she acquired for $1.5 million in May from adult-entertainment businessman Roger Forbes.

The theater has closed. In its place, Winant is putting in a new mahogany custom-milled storefront and swinging wrought-iron gates. The prospective tenant for the former Midtown spot is Coupe Rokei, a salon operated by Keith Funai and Rory McGowan-Polley.

The Pike Place Market Historical Commission is scheduled to consider Coupe Rokei's application for use of the space at 4:35 p.m. Wednesday in the Preservation and Development Authority Meeting Room, 85 Pike St., Room 500. Final details of the lease still are being worked out.

The Smith Block, as the building is known, has two other existing tenants, the 12-room Pensione Nichols bed-and-breakfast on the upper two floors and the N.B. Nichols & Son antique store off Post Alley.