Shops to Fill Interior : Preservationists Back Developer’s Plans for La Reina

Los Angeles preservationist leaders gathered Thursday at the 48-year-old La Reina movie theater in Sherman Oaks to lend their support to a developer’s plan to preserve the historic structure’s facade while gutting its interior for shops.

The historical conservationists tempered their support for the partial salvation of the Art Deco structure on Ventura Boulevard by saying that their first choice would be to have it continue as a movie house.

“It’s not the whole cake,” said Martin Weil, president of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit group that buys and preserves old buildings. “But it’s far better than losing this architectural treasure altogether.”

Architect S. Charles Lee, who designed the theater when Sherman Oaks was a vast wheat field, said he has mixed emotions about the plan.

But, he said, only 50 of the 400 theaters he designed remain, “So in that context, I am happy to accept this partial solution.”

Historic Monument

La Reina, one of the oldest operating theaters in the San Fernando Valley, was declared a historic monument by the Los Angeles City Council last March.

A report from the city’s Cultural Heritage Board described the 875-seat theater as the “most stylistically sophisticated theater ever built in the Valley.”

Board President Amarjit Marwah was among those on hand Thursday to support the partial preservation.

Developer Dennis Bass, who arranged Thursday’s session, said he has submitted plans to the city Building and Safety Department for a $20-million shopping center that will wrap around the La Reina facade.

The two-story center will be nearly a block long and contain 32 shops plus several restaurants, he said. It will be called La Reina Fashion Plaza.

Mann Theater Corp. sold the theater to Bass in January, 1985. A Mann spokesman said single-screen theaters such as La Reina are no longer competitive with multiscreen theaters.

Detailed Designs

Lee, who also designed the Bruin Theater in Westwood and the Wilshire Theater in Hollywood, said that, as with many Art Deco structures, La Reina could not easily be reproduced by present-day craftsmen.

“We don’t have the workers anymore to carry out these elaborate designs,” he said. “That’s another reason why they should be preserved.”

Weil, who is also an architect, said he has been hired by Bass to draw plans for restoring the marquee and other elements of the facade.

He said plans call for “restoring or re-creating the original construction fabrics.” He predicted that the restored front will be “beautiful, especially at night, when it will shine.”