Walk past the Tower Theatre these days and you will not see a movie poster. You will see scaffolding, a construction fence set back about 18 feet from the entrance, and crews carefully peeling back a facade that has covered the building since the 1950s. The alley next to the theater closes during work hours and reopens each evening. The sidewalk and bike lane stay open the whole time.
That is the slow half of what is happening in 9th & 9th right now. The fast half is happening a few doors down, where three storefronts that sat empty or under different names for years have all turned over in the same stretch of months. If you live in this neighborhood, you are watching two completely different clocks tick at once, and knowing which is which will save you a wasted trip and point you toward what is actually worth walking to this fall.
The theater is being taken apart to be put back together
The Tower Theatre closed in 2020 and has not reopened since. Salt Lake Film Society, which had leased the building for decades, eventually purchased it outright and has spent the years since moving through the unglamorous stages that precede any real construction: concept drawings, schematic design, donor meetings, city review. In March 2026, that planning finally became physical work. Crews began dismantling the theater's exterior facade, the first real demolition step in a renovation that will eventually restore the building's original 1928 look, including the castle-like towers that gave the place its name before they were covered over decades ago.
Salt Lake Film Society has been direct about the timeline: this is a multi-year project, and full reopening is not expected until later this decade. The group has compared it to similar historic theater restorations elsewhere, which it says typically take five to ten years from first announcement to reopened doors. For a neighborhood that has waited since 2020, that is not a small ask, but it does explain why the current phase looks like patient, careful teardown rather than a fast flip.
Here is the rough shape of how we got here, in case you have lost track:
- 2020 – Tower Theatre closes.
- Late 2025 – Salt Lake Film Society submits initial concept drawings to Salt Lake City for planning review.
- Into 2026 – Schematic design and capital campaign work continue, scheduled to run through the year.
- March 2026 – Facade deconstruction begins, the first physical step in the rebuild.
- Later this decade – Full reopening, timing dependent on fundraising and construction schedules.
If you are the kind of resident who checks the theater's exterior every time you pass, expect the fence and the exposed brick to be part of the block's look for a while yet. The film society has said its goal is to keep neighboring shops and restaurants fully accessible throughout, so the construction is meant to be a visual disruption more than a walkable one.
Three doors opened while the theater's been dark
While the Tower has been closed, the retail turnover around it has moved at an entirely different speed, weeks instead of years.
The most recent addition is Knoops, a European drinking-chocolate chain opening its first United States location in 9th & 9th on August 21. If you have not had drinking chocolate built to order rather than poured from a single house recipe, this is a new category for the neighborhood, not just a new name on an old concept.
A few doors over, Sugar Moose Candy filled a unit at 1058 E. 900 South that had sat vacant and up for lease for months. The store, which opened this summer, sells Swedish candy and had already proven the concept at its original location in Kaysville before bringing it here. That corner had been an open question for a while, and it is one of the first genuinely new retail concepts to land in the space in some time.
Back in January, Art Café opened nearby under owner Madi Nilsson, who built the space around low-pressure creative projects rather than a standard coffee counter. It is a different kind of business than the neighborhood's longer-running cafes, aimed at people who want to sit and make something, not just sit and scroll.
Here is how the three line up against what came before:
| New business | What it replaced or filled | What opened |
|---|---|---|
| Knoops | New concept, first U.S. location | Aug. 21, 2026 |
| Sugar Moose Candy | Long-vacant 1,600 sq ft unit at 1058 E. 900 South | Summer 2026 |
| Art Café | New concept from local owner Madi Nilsson | January 2026 |
Three storefronts is not a wave, but in a neighborhood this small, three openings inside the same year change the walk noticeably. You now have a chocolate destination, a candy shop, and a café built around making things, all within a block or two of a theater that will not reopen for years.
The festival still closes the streets
None of this changes the neighborhood's one guaranteed fall tradition. The 9th and 9th Street Festival returns again this year, closing 900 South and 900 East to vehicle traffic for a day of food vendors, local exhibitors, and live music. The event has trimmed back some of its earlier programming, the kids' zone is on hiatus aside from a bike rodeo, but the core of it, walking the closed streets with a paper plate in one hand, remains the same draw it has always been. If you plan your fall Saturdays around it already, nothing about the Tower Theatre construction changes that footprint.
How to actually spend a Saturday here right now
Put the theater construction and the new storefronts together and you get a neighborhood that rewards a slower walk than usual this season. Start at Via Veneto Pizzarium near Liberty Park for pizza by the cut, work your way toward 900 East and 900 South, stop at Sugar Moose Candy or Art Café depending on whether you are in the mood for something sweet or something to sit with, and end at Knoops once it opens on the 21st. None of that requires the theater to be running. It just requires knowing what is actually open this month instead of what used to be there.
The scaffolding on the Tower will likely outlast most of the storefronts' grand-opening buzz. That is normal for a historic renovation of this size. What is worth remembering is that the neighborhood is not standing still while it waits. The retail side of 9th & 9th has kept moving all year, and if you have not walked past 900 South and 900 East since spring, you are behind on more than just the theater news.
The point
9th & 9th is running two renewal projects on two different timelines in the same three blocks. The theater's comeback is measured in years and marked by fences and quiet fundraising. The storefronts around it turn over in weeks, and three of them have done exactly that this year alone. Neither pace tells you the whole story on its own. Together, they explain why a neighborhood that has looked the same for years suddenly feels like it is mid-change, even with its most recognizable building still boarded up.
If you are watching this neighborhood for reasons beyond a Saturday walk, whether that is a rental you own two blocks over or a home you have been thinking about for a while, Danny Swett tracks these kinds of local shifts as part of the job, not as a side note. Let's Connect if you want a read on what a changing block like this one actually means for value, timing, or whether now is the moment to act.
