MOVING TO A NEW location will be more difficult for the Actors Workshop, which occupies the second story of its current residence. It houses classrooms, an office, and a 55-seat theater where numerous groups, including the highly regarded local troupe TheatreZone, regularly perform. This past summer, TheatreZone presented Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound to favorable reviews, followed by Jane Martin’s Anton in Show Business last month. It’s the kind of theater that is the antithesis of the glitzy Broadway-bound or road shows that play the Shubert, Colonial, and Wang theaters. And a theater district without the sort of funky little space that the Actors Workshop provides to edgy experimental groups like TheatreZone has few bragging rights to the title. Even out-of-town theatergoers want to see Les Misérables only so many times.

Frank Storace, who’s run the nonprofit Actors Workshop since 1989, says he knew his days were numbered when the Ritz project was under way. For years, when few developers expressed interest in the Chinatown end of Boylston Street, Storace enjoyed below-market rent and tenancy-at-will. Now, however, he’s being pushed into a tight real-estate market and an uncertain economy.

" The Actors Workshop isn’t a victim. We will find another space, " he says emphatically. " I’m entertaining all offers. " He wants to remain in the downtown area — the theater district is the logical place for an acting school, after all — and he’s adamant that the workshop remain on a subway line for accessibility to the college students and working adults who make up the bulk of its population.

But Storace knows it won’t be easy to duplicate 4000 square feet of space, with windows overlooking the stately Boston Edison building. Or the modest theater that allows students and professionals alike to rehearse and stage productions. When TheatreZone isn’t staging shows here, Actors Workshop faculty or some other fledging troupe (such as Open Faucet or Performance Cult) is. Props left over from the consistently sold-out run of TheatreZone’s Anton in Show Business can still be seen scattered around the stage.

" It is a challenge for groups like that to find affordable space. Frank has accommodated low budgets, " says Danielle Fauteux Jacques, artistic director of TheatreZone, which has staged 23 shows at Actors Workshop since 1995.

TheatreZone is slowly getting the funds and permits together to move into permanent space in Chelsea. The group purchased a four-story historic building in Chelsea Square and is now moving through renovations. Eventually, TheatreZone will be part of a performing-arts center called Chelsea Theatre Works. But that goal is still many months away at best. Until the Actors Workshop finds a new home " it puts us in limbo, " says Fauteux Jacques, who has taught acting classes there.

" I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the developer will give Frank more time, " she says.

WHETHER OR NOT that happens, the Actors Workshop’s ouster from its long-time home is inevitable. Maybe, like Jack’s Joke Shop, it will find another appropriate site downtown. If not, the heart of the city will be poorer for it. Upscale development can and must co-exist with the smaller, funkier places that give a city its unique character. If not, our downtown is in danger of becoming a nondescript spread of high-priced condos, hotels, banks, and retail chain stores that cater to tourists. It will morph into a two-tiered neighborhood like so many others in the city, with the upscale managing to avoid and ignore the blighted, and with nothing in between.

" What will the tourists do when they get here? " asks Lisa Kelly, a former student at the Actors Workshop. " Stay at the Ritz and work out? "

A home-grown merchant like Hecky Bengin, who wears local history on his rolled-up shirtsleeves, is what gives the district its charm and color. An organization with roots as deep as the Actors Workshop deserves a berth alongside Emerson College and the respected professional theaters. No, we can’t turn back the clock to the days when movie theaters like the Gaiety and the Pilgrim — which was razed for a parking lot in 1996 — dotted lower Washington Street, when downtown was a mecca for the entire city and its surrounding suburbs. But a downtown without one-of-a-kind businesses, without variety, is nothing more than a convenient setting for corporate offices, Starbucks, and the Gap.

" To lose the Actors Workshop would be criminal, " says Storace. " There’s nothing else like it in the city. I understand; it’s all about money and real estate. Still, I don’t know how I’ll feel when the move actually happens. I’ve been here forever. "

Hecky Bengin remembers a very different downtown decades ago. " There used to be three hardware stores on Stuart Street, " he says. " Now you can’t buy a screwdriver around here. The specialty stores are gone. "

From behind the counter at Jack’s Joke Shop, Bengin drops a dollar bill on the floor. A pint-size customer stoops to pick it up, and the bill jumps magically back into Hecky’s hand. The little boy stares, mouth agape. His father, who says he’s been a customer at Jack’s for nearly all of his 40 years, shakes his head in bewilderment and quickly forks over five dollars for the trick bill. They leave, smiling.

Try getting that at the Gap.

Loren King can be reached at Lking86958@aol.com