The Floyd J. McCree Theatre and Fine Arts Centre was founded in June 1970 and named in honor of the City of Flint’s first African American Mayor and first African American Mayor of a major United States city, Floyd J. McCree. The Model Cities Program entered in an agreement with Genesee Community College (now C.S. Mott Community College), to develop and implement a community cultural center in response to the needs of a cultural arts program on the north side of Flint. The college chose the old Father Blasko Hall on East Stewart Avenue, owned by Sacred Heart Catholic Church, as the site for this new venture.

In 1979, McCree Theatre relocated to the former Model Cities Activity Center at 115 E. Pierson Road under a lease agreement with Genesee County. Although the Model Cities Activity Center was a more modem and aesthetically pleasing facility, McCree Theatre’s audience did not follow the theater to its new location. Amid a decrease in funding and exorbitant building maintenance costs, the McCree Theatre program fell on hard times. The end of 1988 was the end of an era, McCree Theatre would leave the Pierson Road facility.

In 1992-1994, the Board, led by John Nash and Cathy Johnson, attempted a resurgence of the theater. Nash and Johnson, began periodic productions at Mott College’s Mott Memorial Building. The last major production produced under the banner of the old McCree Theatre was in 1996, The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves. Cathy Johnson, with the remaining Board members continued to keep the McCree Theatre banner flying by producing cultural events under the McCree Theatre name. Including, two Storyteller’s Festivals in 1997 and 1998.

Charles Winfrey met with former McCree Theatre staffers Billie Scott Lindo, Drama Instructor and Youth Director, Richard Battle, Music Director and Cathy E. Johnson, Stage Manager, to produce Christmas at the Crossroads at Foss Avenue Baptist Church. During that production, considerable discussion centered around reviving McCree Theatre. The discussions evolved into an action plan to make the “New” McCree Theatre a reality. Christmas at the Crossroads opened The “New” McCree Theatre’s inaugural season in December 2004.