April 1, 2026
By Jonathan Rich
BrevardBeagle.com
The interior of the Co-Ed Cinema was flooded by a burst water pipe on Feb. 2. Brevard Beagle photo by Jonathan Rich
On Feb. 2, Co-ed Cinema screened the psychological horror movie “Send Help” for the third time that Sunday and theater proprietors Abby Steel and Eli Landreth locked up the 4,000-square-foot building to close the downtown Brevard theater to the public as usual for the next two days.
At the time, they had no idea how ominous and prophetic the title of that film would soon become for the couple’s business and personal lives.
Two days later, a local couple walking down Main Street around midnight on Tuesday, Feb. 4 contacted the Brevard Fire Department four doors down Main Street from the Co-Ed saying they heard the sound of running water coming from inside the theater.
Steel and Landreth awoke to an early morning telephone call from emergency officials and soon after arrived at the business Steel has operated since August 2015 to find an all-too-real nightmare taking place under Transylvania County’s only public silver screen.
An untold amount of water poured from this burst pipe over the Co-Ed Cinema’s men’s room for two days until it was discovered. Brevard Beagle photo by Jonathan Rich
A pipe in the ceiling over the theater’s men’s room had burst. An immeasurable amount of water had poured into the theater’s lobby and concession stand before the deluge sloshed down the auditorium’s carpeted aisle to pool in a crawlspace below the building.
“The water leak caused quite a bit of damage to both floors,” Steel, who has worked at the Co-Ed since it was her first job at age 17, said explaining what rising waters did to the building which has entertained film fans since the 1930s. “I was still in shock when we got there and could not believe what had happened.”
“We walked into the auditorium and nothing made sense,” her husband added recalling the early a.m. visit in freezing temperatures to their downtown Brevard business. “Water was coming out of the ceiling. We just sat in the auditorium and wanted to cry.”
In the almost two months since the theater closed its doors to patrons, emergency repair crews have been in and out of the Co-Ed to mop up all water that flooded the building and delivered fans and dehumidifiers to dry everything out and prevent mold, mildew, and other hazards from spreading inside the water-logged structure.
“By an incredible blessing, our new laser projector, sound equipment, popcorn machine, soda fountain, fridge, and most of our electronics were completely saved from the flooding,” Steel said. “There will be lots of repairs on the path ahead, and we still don’t know exactly how long it will take, but we’re working to reopen as fast as possible. At this point, we’re waiting on the wheels of insurance and for everything to be dried out before any demolition and repairs happen.”
“We’re hoping for late spring or maybe June, but there are some big projects that have to be completed before then,” Landreth added with optimism trickling in his voice. “Right now we’re just taking it day-to-day with the insurance companies and help from the city to make sure things are done the right way to get things back where they were and maybe even a little better.”
The blank marquee and traffic cones alert downtown Brevard visitors that the Co-Ed Cinema is not currently open for business, Brevard Beagle photo by Jonathan Rich
City-supported Cinema
The couple leases the building from the City of Brevard for $100 a year through their company Take One Entertainment. The city owns this property only a few doors down from Brevard City Hall as well as Clemson Park on the other side of the movie theater.
With the recent closing of Harris Ace Hardware between the Co-Ed and Brevard City Hall, there was speculation this prime Main Street real estate might be redeveloped for another use.
The lease with the city through 2032 stipulates the property must be used as a movie theater and Brevard City Manager Wilson Hooper said that is the current focus during the early repair and remediation stages.
“Initially we just want to make sure it’s safe to reopen,” Hooper said. “After that, we want to make sure the building is sustainable for the long term.”
Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof agreed that reopening the Co-Ed Cinema is a priority to retain the small-town charm all of Main Street offers to locals and guests.
“The city purchased the Co-Ed in 1980 because we realized that a local, independently-owned movie theater would add to the variety and vitality of downtown Brevard,” Copelof said. “It is important to have different activities for both residents and visitors to enjoy and the movie theater is one of those. It dates back to 1939 and helps preserve the history and character of our town. It is an important part of downtown Brevard.”
The former Ace hardware store between the movie theater and City Hall is now vacant. Previous mold concerns and overcrowding issues within City Hall necessitated the Brevard Police Department’s relocation to Commerce Street near Railroad Depot Park in the summer of 2024.
Those factors may have led to a rumor that the area between Clemson Park and the Brevard Fire Department was being considered for a downtown public parking deck, but Hooper said that is simply not the case.
“We have not discussed a parking deck there at all,” Hooper stressed before adding that any use for the Co-Ed building other than as a movie theater has not been considered and McMillan Pazdan Smith architecture firm has been hired to assess what repairs and updates should be made to the Co-Ed building.
Mayor Copelof expressed that she too wants a repaired Co-Ed Cinema to remain part of Main Street and downtown Brevard’s past, present, and future.
“I hope we can continue with the partnership between the City and an independent business operating the theater,” Copelof said. “That arrangement has worked well now for many years, and I believe it serves a public interest. I want the theater to continue to operate as a theater.”
Drying out, but not withered
Last Friday, the marquee at the movie theater was blank and the only sounds inside the structure were the whirling of the fans and dehumidifiers running around the clock for almost two months straight.
Orange parking cones were still in front of the box office and inside the lobby disjointed pieces of the concession stand and popcorn machine had been ripped from the wall and were lying on the floor.
Inside the auditorium, bare floorboards were bereft of the spilled popcorn, crumpled candy wrappers and empty drink cups that typically necessitate cleaning the auditorium between screenings. Some had been ripped away, but the classic hinged and padded movie theater seats remained upright as if awaiting moviegoers for the next show.
The lobby was cluttered with equipment from First Restoration disaster recovery services blowing clean air throughout the cinema around the clock. There was no smell of fresh popcorn in the air. The emergency exit behind the screen leading to Clemson Plaza was blocked by hoses and electrical cords powering the loud remediation equipment now occupying the space where an audience should have been sitting through coming attractions during the first matinee of the day.
Steel and Landreth were not in their casual black and gold movie theater employee attire that day, but were in shorts and t-shirts once again surveying the aftermath of the water damage and making cautious plans for the future.
“The water leak caused quite a bit of damage to both floors and we’ll need some extra remediation for hazardous materials in the walls, which is why some repairs have been delayed,” Steel said.
This is not the first time expensive investments were made to the building the business leases from the city.
In 2022, Brevard City Council spent $12,000 to patch and repair leaks in the theater’s roof. Last summer, Steel and Landreth went out-of-pocket to upgrade the sound system of the aging theater as well as the main computer server. They recently added a state-of-the-art laser film projector while also replacing part of the building’s HVAC system.
A new commercial ice machine was installed in 2025 and the concession stand also received some upgrades while repairs were made to sections of the auditorium’s ceiling and exterior neon marquee.
Those improvements were spared by the massive water leak. Now the focus is on getting the entire building ready to safely welcome ticket holders at a time when theater attendance has been in general decline since the COVID-19 pandemic and compounded by the advent of affordable digital streaming of entertainment for home screening.
Eli Landreth poses inside a special promotion he and Co-Ed Cinema co-owner Abby Steel created outside Transylvania County’s only movie theater for the 2023 film “Barbie.” Photo courtesy Take One Entertainment.
Hope on the horizon
Were it not for the flood, the Co-Ed would probably be showing the Ryan Gosling space adventure “Project Hail Mary” three times a day, five days a week, and that is not lost on the cinema’s only two employees.
At this time of the year the two-person staff would normally be scheduling the latest summer blockbusters and art house favorites to screen in Brevard, planning the annual summer series of free kids’ movies on Friday and Saturday mornings or creating a special theatrical experiences like they did for pop culture lightning rods “Barbie,” “Wicked” and new installments in the “Star Wars” saga.
However, as local residents prepare for outdoor Easter festivities, there are obviously more pressing matters at hand for the married couple and this beloved community movie theater as they struggle to add some innovations along path to get things at least back to where they were inside the building before the pipe burst.
“It’s all still really early in the process, but there were things we wanted to do at the theater for our customers before all of this even happened,” Landreth said. “The concession stand was always kind of limited due to the space we had to work in, but now maybe we can make that area bigger and offer more variety if we expand it to better utilize the space. We have to find a balance between what the insurance company will pay for because of the flooding and what makes the best business sense as we move forward to bring the whole theater back to where it was. It’s almost like a blessing that all of this happened, but the reality of it is that we are still early in the remediation process.”
One ray of hope amidst the Co-Ed’s cloudy future is that the Heart of Brevard downtown business organization and the Community Focus Foundation have established a fund where community members may be able to contribute to repairs if additional funding other than insurance is needed to reopen the theater’s doors.
“The building is 87 years old and really needs some major restoration work. The City is looking into potential grant funding that might be available for this longer-term effort,” Copelof explained of the local municipal response to the private business’s economic emergency. “This would benefit the overall community by better preserving this historic structure and ensure the theater can continue to serve the public for many years in the future. None of this is decided yet and would be part of a future city council meeting discussion.”
The couple was very complimentary of the assistance city officials have offered to get things repaired and remediated. The fire department pointed out some auditorium ceiling tiles untouched by the flooding needed to be replaced and there were other repair and restoration issues being considered while the ongoing project remains in its infancy.
Steel said despite these challenges, she and Landreth remain resolved to the return of showing first-run Hollywood films and special screenings of local independent documentaries and features in Transylvania County.
“Eli and I are committed to getting the Co-Ed back up and running,” she said. “This community is a wonderful place to be and feeling the outpouring of support for this very special piece of our town has been a shining light in an otherwise very stressful time. Eli and I appreciate the support more than you know. The Co-Ed is a special place to us and so many people across generations. We’re determined to keep it alive.”
Contact Jonathan Rich by emailing editor@BrevardBeagle.com.