WHEELING, W.Va. -- Strike up the band: The house lights are coming back on at the legendary Capitol Music Hall.

Civic leaders are planning to reopen West Virginia's most famous theater, which was once a regular tour stop for Johnny Cash, George Jones and other country music legends and which hosted the Saturday night Jamboree, one of the nation's longest-running radio shows.

Fire code violations and years of wear and tear caused its owner, concert promoter Live Nation, to shutter the 81-year-old music hall in 2007. But the Wheeling-Ohio County Convention and Visitors Bureau announced last week it is buying the theater, with plans to reopen it in November.

Initial renovations are estimated to cost $1.2 million and reach up to $8 million in later years. Saving the 2,450-seat theater -- which is similar to older Pittsburgh venues like the Benedum, Heinz Hall and the Fulton Theater -- is part of Wheeling's efforts to revive its ailing downtown business corridor, much as the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust has leveraged the arts to redevelop the Penn-Liberty corridor.

Reopening the music hall will generate more than $5.5 million in spending by visitors and support up to $1.6 million in wages, according to an economic impact study funded by the Benedum Foundation.

"We're making a physical statement to the community by investing millions into a building with historical significance, but what it also does is drive business," said Wheeling Mayor Andy McKenzie.

When the Capitol opened on Thanksgiving Day in 1928, it was the biggest theater in West Virginia. Some five years later WWVA-AM began airing its Jamboree radio program from the theater stage, broadcasting performances by Little Jimmy Dickens and other country greats. The program went elsewhere for 20 years but returned in 1969 and remained in the music hall for three more decades.

WWVA's 50,000-watt signal reached across the nation and country fans regularly descended on "The Friendly City" on weekends for the show -- many of them traveling in motor coaches parked around the Main Street business corridor.

But the show, renamed Jamboree USA, started to lose some luster after focusing its energies on the giant "Jamboree in the Hills" summer music festival and stopped broadcasting in 2005. The theater closed two years later. (A new Saturday Jamboree program was launched last year in a variety of Wheeling locations.)

"When [the theater] went dark it had a significant negative impact on the downtown tourism product," said convention and visitors bureau Executive Director Frank O'Brien. "The Capitol Music Hall for many, many years was a great destination, lining the motor coaches up and down Main Street."

It was no great surprise when the Capitol closed. Fire code violations plagued the venue in its final years. Live Nation -- whose former parent company, Clear Channel Communications, purchased the building from a private owner in 2002 -- stationed firefighters around the hall during events in early 2007.

Civic leaders were studying ways to revive the Capitol even before it closed, ultimately leading to the purchase announcement Thursday. The visitors bureau is buying the venue for $615,000, using proceeds from a 6 percent city-county hotel-motel tax. It will pour $1.2 million into immediate renovations addressing fire code and safety issues, which should allow the venue to open by November.

Later, projects will focus on modernizing the old building -- which has an upstairs ballroom and downstairs restrooms that are not accessible to disabled visitors -- and restoring historic areas. Those repairs could cost $6 million to $8 million, which supporters hope to raise through tax credits, federal and state grants and private contributions.

The theater will be operated by a local government agency -- the Wheeling Municipal Auditorium Board -- which also operates WesBanco Arena nearby. The economic impact study said the theater will likely operate on a budget deficit of between $3,000 and $72,500 annually.

Mayor McKenzie, a professional financial adviser, said it was still a good investment for local agencies, even in times of global economic turmoil.

"This is the time you need to restructure yourself and embrace change. As [the economy] gets healthy, Wheeling will be at the forefront of these changes. You can't keep your head down. We must lead ourselves out of this."

The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, which called the Capitol home for decades, is expected to return to the theater.

Recapturing the hall's old magic -- particularly in the country music world -- will not be easy, said Frank Bell, vice president of programming for Pittsburgh's Froggy radio (98.3 FM).

"In its heyday it got the biggest names in country music -- Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell, Mickey Gilley, Randy Travis. But that was the 1970s and '80s, and at that time, options were much more limited in the Pittsburgh area. There was no Pepsi Roadhouse, no Post-Gazette Pavilion, no Wheeling Island casino. The competitive landscape has changed," Mr. Bell said.

Reopening the theater, he continued, is "admirable, and from the standpoint of Froggy radio we support anybody who is bringing live country music to this region. But I do think they face a lot of challenges."

Supporters of the Capitol project agree, saying they will have to refocus on other genres -- including Broadway, rock, comedy and movies -- to keep the music hall filled.

"Country is important but we have to take on a different business model," said Mr. O'Brien. "This will not be your grandfather's music hall. This will be a new one."