It was a carriage house, a bus depot, a movie theater and a dinner theater before it was a 270-seat theater, capable of staging 80-to-100 live shows every year, among them Joey Jewell’s recent tribute to Frank Sinatra and the Seattle International Comedy Festival.

Since 2006, when the city entered into its 15-year lease with the Auburn Avenue Theater building’s owners, 14,000 people have taken in shows there.

But, facts are facts: at 92-years-old, the building, just a whisker or two short of a centenarian, is tired, and not getting younger. As might have been expected, given a structure so ripe in years, the city has triaged it along with fixes major and minor to keep it a manageable site.

Yet, as Daryl Faber, director of Auburn Parks, Arts and Recreation, told the Auburn City Council last week, with the city’s 15-year lease ready to expire in three years, it’s time to figure out what to do with it.

“As the downtown continues to redevelop in the next five years, I think we are going to find that maintaining a theater by some method is definitely in the best interest of the city, as we want a vibrant downtown,” Faber said. “At this point, it does have value, but it does need a little bit of spit shine one way or another.”

The question before the City Council now is the method Auburn chooses to maintain “a theater,” in the downtown, which is where city leaders would like to keep it, especially given the recent and ongoing construction of apartment buildings there and the ready audiences that come with them.

Should the city put more money into another round of repairs? For instance, the north wall that abuts the alley, while not failing. is not in great shape either, Faber said, and without major work will continue to be a problem. Should the city think about building something entirely new on the site, or elsewhere in the downtown?

Each scenario carries its own price tag.

The cost of renovating the 7,500-square building comes to $250- to $350-per-square foot, which pencils out to $1-to $2 million, Faber said.

A major sticking point with the foregoing is that to complete the type of renovation the theater building demands and to have a chance at acquiring critical funding. the city would either have to buy the site or enter into another lease that would give it time to, “get its ducks in a row,” Faber said.

Should the city decide to build anew, Faber said, the cost of raw land in the downtown comes to about $45 to $75 a square foot, based on city or other-owned property there. To build would come out to $350-to-$450 a square foot. So, to build a 10,000-square-foot theater, about 25 percent larger than the present building, sums to $4 million to $5 million.

A third option would be to enter into a public-private partnership.

Any purchase of the present theater building would have to be negotiated, Faber said.

“There’s a lot of opportunities,” said Councilman Bill Peloza. “I think that we need engagement downtown. Moving this thing out to another area, we’d lose that downtown feeling.”

“I think everybody thinks that to have a vibrant downtown, the arts are a big part of it, and it’s already working,” Faber said, noting the present site’s proximity to the Auburn Arts and Culture center, just north of the alley in the old Auburn Post Office. The city is about to start renovation work on that building.

It’s taken the city 10 years, Faber said, to find the perfect rhythm for the theater.

“It’s a place you can go for a nice, intimate show. All of the 270 seats are really good,” Faber said. “If you spill a beer, it’s not the end of the world. That you have a beer is also not the end of the world. So, it’s really hit a home run in Auburn. Yelp and Google give it 4.5 to 5 all of the time, which is amazing because, when you go into that building, you’re not feeling like you’re in a 4.5 or a 5. But it really works for what we are doing.

“It doesn’t have to be the shiniest coin to have value,” Faber added.