Updated 10/29/2009 7:45:46 PM
ATHENS, GA - From the outside, the historic Georgia Theatre in Athens looks much the same as it always has.
But Thursday we got a chance to view the burned out interior that was gutted by a huge fire on June 19th.
Only the four outside walls are still standing, held up by steel cross beams inside and new steel support beams propped against the exterior.
The charred interior looks like a ruin from the Civil War.
First built a few years after that war, this famous theater has hosted 120 years of plays, movies and music concerts.
Owner Wilmot Greene, who bought it five years ago, tells 11 Alive News he's spent much of the past four months just clearing away debris.
"We've been working really hard to get the inside cleaned up so we could assess the damage," Greene told us, "and figure out what it is that we can save and what we have to scrap."
Greene's demolition crew hasn't been able to salvage much from the rubble except a few piles of bricks and some blackened pine roof timbers that he hopes to build into a new bar.
The Athens-Clarke County Historic Preservation Commission has now approved his plan to rebuild the theater.
He hopes to add stained glass windows to the front and a roof top restaurant.
But the new construction must meet new building codes, which include requirements like thirty new bathrooms.
Those codes have driven the cost of rebuilding to more than $1.5-million dollars, according to Greene.
His insurance policy paid off the $1.5-million he borrowed to purchase the theater, but left little for reconstruction.
Now he's hoping years of loyal concert goers will pitch in with donations to help him reopen by next year.
One of the first opportunities is a benefit concert by the Zac Brown Band at Atlanta's Fox Theatre Friday night at 7:30.
The cost of the $100 tickets is tax deductible thanks to the help of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.
Meanwhile, the exact cause of the June fire remains a mystery, but is not believed to have been set intentionally
