The theater was designed by architect C. Howard Crane, who had also designed the Fox Theatre (Detroit), and was built in 1942. The theater was owned and operated by the Butterfield Theater Company until the 1980s, when ownership was transferred to the George Kerasotes Corporation. In 1979, under GKC's ownership, the original theater design (a single screen with a main floor and balcony) was "quaded," with the balcony made into its own separate floor and the screen divided in half to produce four individual screening spaces.
Ownership was transferred to local entrepreneur and Borders Group co-founder Tom Borders in 1987. Borders sold the two bottom screening rooms to the Urban Outfitters chain, who gutted the property and built a store in its place.
Relics of the theater's history can also be seen in its carpeting (which still bears the GKC logo) and in remnants of the original architecture visible in the Urban Outfitters store.
