Two years ago in a Red & Black interview, Georgia Theatre owner Wilmot Greene said: “I hope karma is on my side. My pocketbook tells me I’m doing the wrong thing, but my brain tells me I’m doing the right thing.”

The morning of June 19 certainly seemed to scream that karma was not, in fact, on Greene’s side. On that morning, downtown Athens felt the heat of Greene’s beloved theater more so than the heat of the sweltering weather.

The building which Greene had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations into since 2005, gushed smoke and flames – rather than revenue – out the windows.

As Athens reeled from the destruction of the beloved landmark, words of recollection and sympathy began to pour from the lips of students, locals and musicians alike.

Andrew Terrell, a senior psychology major from Atlanta, said: “When I heard about the fire I drove straight downtown to see it for myself and looked on helplessly with the rest of the crowd. One one of the reasons I was so sad was, because as an aspiring musician I had always had dreams of playing there.”

Mark Hammond, owner of Allen’s Bar and Grill, sung his two cents to a different tune, one of hope for rebuilding.

“As students Hilt and I spend as much time in the Georgia Theatre as we did in Allen’s,” Hammond said in a news release. “We’ll do whatever we can to help the Georgia Theatre rebuild … Maybe we can start selling the Georgia Theatre ‘Big Beers at Allen’s’.”

Just days after the Theatre’s ashes settled, all of Athens had joined in on this forward-looking melody, and karma seemed to be on Greene’s side after all. The Melting Point hosted a concert to benefit the Theatre’s employees a mere four days after the fire.

Bands that mourned the music staple followed suit, holding benefit concerts at local venues such as Farm 255 and the 40-Watt Club.

Many of these same venues took on the Theatre’s concert schedule. Although the proceeds of these concerts go to the host venues, Greene is content to be able to uphold contracts with bands.

“We will be an outside promoter,” he said. “This means we get the door money to pay the band . while the venue gets the bar money.”

Even with such a widespread community response, the task of rebuilding is a daunting one, and Greene hopes to find additional funds elsewhere.

“We hope to have a relationship with a non-profit organization dedicated to saving historic buildings in place soon,” Greene said. “Then they can help us collect funds and be completely transparent and accountable for the raised funds.”

“Once this is in place we can start fundraising in earnest. Every little bit helps, but the expenses are really overwhelming right now.”

A concrete monetary goal for all this fundraising is still up in the air.

“We assume the new theater could carry more debt [than the old theater] if we weren’t spending as much on repair and maintenance, so the question is how much more debt can the new theater support and can we build it back for that?” Greene said.

In spite of the remaining financial uncertainties, Greene still trusts his mind over his pocketbook.

Encouraged by Athens’ tremendous response, he has already started brainstorming ways to make the Georgia Theatre better than ever before.

“It’s too early to tell what is possible or affordable, but we have some great ideas. Code requirements will mean that the staircases will be wider; bathrooms will have to be on main floor, we might have to have an elevator.”

“I’d really like to have some rooftop access, ideally a bar or even a restaurant up there,” he said. “I feel like as long as the marquee is the same and there are some red swoopy curtains it will feel like home in there.”