Bid to reopen long-closed East Bay theater gains momentum

The Lafayette City Council will take up the theater issue at its Monday night meeting.

LAFAYETTE — The campaign to reopen Lafayette’s landmark Park Theater, shuttered for more than a decade, is gathering steam from a group of concerned residents — with the city’s support.

The nonprofit Park Theater Trust, which consists of more than 50 Lafayette residents and representatives of community groups, wants to revive the Park Theater as a cinema and entertainment venue. The movie theater closed in 2005 because it was losing money.

The Lafayette City Council will take up the theater issue at its Monday night meeting.

Lafayette plans to try the same method — density transfer — as was used in Moraga to successfully reopen the Rheem Theatre in that town last year. The developer would buy and donate the theater properties, estimated to cost $2.9 million, to the trust. In return, the developer would be allowed to build up to 32 residential units on the property and another development project in the city.

In a report submitted to Lafayette, the trust concluded that what works is a partnership between a nonprofit owning the building, then leasing and working with a for-profit operator who will offer movies and a full schedule of community events and programs.

The trust would protect the Park Theater from future development and raise the funds needed for the theater’s capital improvements and maintenance. The cost, estimated at $2.5 million a year, would be raised through grants, fundraising and donations.

This isn’t the first attempt to revive the Park Theater — there have been at least five previous efforts, dating back to 2003 with former theater operator Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland. Michaan owned the Park Theater at the time, but sold it to a real estate developer because he was losing money running the cinema.

The most recent effort was in August 2018, when a developer pulled out. Madison Park Financial, an Oakland real estate development firm, had an option to buy the theater property, but declined. Simon Chen, chief financial officer for Madison Park Financial, cited numerous financial hurdles, including the size and scale of the project.

But in its report to the city, the Park Theater Trust said it will succeed where others have failed because it examined the previous attempts and it also looked at what was working for other communities and their small cinemas.

The trust has support from community organizations such as the Town Hall Theatre Company, a Lafayette community theater group, and Lafayette Community Foundation, a nonprofit made up of residents aiming to enhance the quality of life in Lafayette.

The Lafayette Community Foundation provided seed money to start the Park Theater Trust.

“I am delighted to offer this letter in support of this project that will create a path to getting Lafayette’s Park Theater opened again after 15 years of closing its doors,” Jay Lifson, executive director of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a letter included with the city staff report. “It takes a community to pull this off, and we are proud to be part of this community.”