After a few speeches and a tune from a six-piece orchestra, the Capitol screen lit up with its debut feature film, "The Inner Voice." The female lead, actress Agnes Ayres, would lose her fortune years later in the stock-market crash. But at the moment, the silent-film world still held promise, and she was a star.

A little of that 1921 excitement might be in the air at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday as community leaders in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood gather inside the Capitol to celebrate a $7 million project aimed at renovating the theater and invigorating the neighborhood.

Construction begins Thursday to turn the theater, empty for 23 years, into a three-screener specializing in independent films. It is slated to reopen in April.