R&B Hall of Fame Eyeing Buckeye's Moreland Theater in Cleveland for Permanent Home

City Council just backed Buckeye’s largest public art project, a restoration of the century-old Moreland Theater, with an added $300,000. Credit: Google

James Brown, Michael Jackson and Ray Charles could be coming to Cleveland’s Buckeye neighborhood.

Well, at least in spirit.

After years of speculation and fundraising, the next phase of Buckeye’s long-vacant Moreland Theater could be the new home for the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, multiple sources reported.

In February, Axios Cleveland confirmed that R&B Hall of Fame founder LaMont Robinson was considering the Moreland for his museum’s permanent home.

For years, Robinson, a Warrensville Heights native, had been hunting for the right spot to park what’s been a traveling awards show since 2010, when the initiative was founded to memorialize innovators and stalwarts of the genre.

Robinson’s search for a brick and mortar seems to have lined up nicely with the city-led makeover of a block that’s been vacant for the better part of the past few decades. Earlier this year, City Council approved a $300,000 grant for Burten, Bell, Carr to use in the renovation of the landmark.

“This is long overdue,” Robinson told Axios. “If it wasn’t Rhythm & Blues, there wouldn’t be rock ’n’ roll and there wouldn’t be a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

Robinson declined to add further comment, but told Scene more information will be announced mid-April.

Just as it’s solidified its ties to rock music, Cleveland has its part in the evolution of R&B. Leo’s Casino was a staple for the likes of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. Boddie Recording Company helped cut records by the O’Jays and other Midwestern soul acts.

And the city helped raise luminaries like Bootsy Collins, Macy Gray and The Ohio Players—all Ohio natives that are also inductees in the R&B Hall of Fame.

A permanent home for the R&B Hall of Fame—a museum with clear national appeal—could also help lift Buckeye. Robinson predicts “250,000 to 500,000” tourists per year, his site reads, along with 100 jobs at the result of the build.

“The goal is not to build a funeral parlor with lights,” the site’s Q&A reads, but to construct “a high-tech state-of-the-art, 50,000-square-feet, highly-interactive, virtual reality, 3D hologram experience center that will be the Disneyland of Music.”

Robinson has garnered roughly $2 million of artifacts, Axios reported, that could find their way into the Moreland Theater building one day.