The first step toward renovating the storied Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City’s 9th and 9th neighborhood is happening soon.

The Salt Lake Film Society has filed for a city building permit to start deconstructing the historic theater’s facade. The nonprofit that owns the Tower and Broadway Centre Cinemas announced the move Monday.

“This step allows us to better understand the original 1928 facade so we can thoughtfully plan what comes next,” Prescott Muir, the lead architect on the project, said in a statement.

Muir, whose firm Muir Arch. is overseeing the design, called the Tower “a beloved cultural landmark in our community and has been for nearly a century.”

The original facade of The Tower, at 876 E. 900 South, looked like two castle towers, inspired by the Tower of London. It’s where the theater got its name.

A renovation in the 1950s gave the theater’s exterior the retro-future look it has today. In the process, though, it destroyed the west tower and covered up its eastern twin.

The film society in November submitted plans to the city for remodeling 98-year-old theater, which has been shuttered since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and an earthquake in March 2020.

The plans call for maintaining the theater’s main auditorium, which sat 380 people when it opened in 1928.

They also include a new second floor above the main theater, featuring an event space with its own projector and screen.

And the Tower also would get a new basement, meant to house three smaller screening rooms, along with a speakeasy and new bathrooms. An elevator would be added to make all three floors accessible.

The design for the facade calls for the destroyed west tower to be “digitally recreated” to match the hidden east tower, “so that cinematic projections can cast onto the ‘ghost’ tower at night.”

Muir Arch. and Big-D Construction will spend spring and early summer carefully removing parts of the facade “to evaluate the original structure and determine what historical elements remain intact,” the film society said in a news release Monday.

Then, crews will identify what materials and design details can be protected and incorporated into future plans, the release said.

Construction will take place each Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., during which the alley and roadway next to the Tower will be closed to traffic.