Say It Isn’t So, Film Buffs Cry : Loma Appears Headed for Last Picture Show

It opened May 5, 1945, and in its time, the Loma Theatre has shown some of the longest-running movies in San Diego history.

The list includes “The Sound of Music,” which ran for 2 years, 6 months, 18 days--a San Diego County record.

Soon, the Loma may be replaced by a sprawling office complex.

Ted Mann, chairman of the board and president of Mann Theatres, which runs the Loma, also owns the Rosecrans Street property in Loma Portal on which it sits. He acknowledged being in negotiations with a private developer about converting the property to another use.

If the Loma dies, it will be the latest in a long line of large one-screen movie houses to vanish from the American landscape. Its demise would leave San Diego with only four such theaters--the Valley Circle and Cinema 21 in Mission Valley, the Grossmont Cinema in La Mesa and the Cinerama near San Diego State University.

Andy Friedenberg, director of the Cinema Society of San Diego, said he would be “outraged” should the Loma close.

“It would be a tremendous loss to the community,” he said. “To be honest, I had heard rumors that this might happen. I’ve been hearing them for nearly six months. We don’t have enough theaters as it is in San Diego. When you lose an historic theater like the Loma, as we have the Balboa (as a movie house), it’s damaging to the community and especially to the film community.”

In most cases, such theaters have been replaced by smaller “multiplex” houses, which show as many as seven movies in adjoining screening rooms. Such theaters are not considered as aesthetically pleasing to the art, though, arguably, they make more profit.

Clyde Cornell, district manager of Mann Theatres in San Diego, called the Loma one of the city’s best-drawing houses. He said the threat of its closing was “news to me; and if that’s true, I have no comment.”

He added, however: “I have no problem with your saying it’s one of the best houses around. It’s a beautiful theater offering a great presentation. We had a great run of ‘Top Gun,’ and we’re having another one for ‘Star Trek IV.’ It’s a good house.”

Mann, interviewed by phone from Los Angeles, said, “I can’t say for sure” when asked whether the Loma would be demolished.

“I happen to own the property, and I have no objection to tearing it down,” he said. “We’ve built many theaters around it (in the San Diego area) that are much more competitive.”

Told that film buffs and preservationists might well object to the death of such a landmark, Mann said: “Then they should have bought more tickets! That’s all I care to say.”

The developer in this case is James Dromgoole, head of Asset Development Co., based in Point Loma. Dromgoole confirmed that he holds the option to buy the Loma for the purpose of redevelopment. He stopped short of saying, however, that the theater would be demolished.

“It’s too early to say,” he said. “We’ve been looking at different site plans and uses. . . . We really haven’t got it planned enough.”

He said negotiations to convert the Loma are “in their earliest stages.” Asked specifically whether the theater will be demolished, Dromgoole said, “We haven’t really made the decision yet, but it is a good possibility.” He said the building’s “sloping floor and brick structure pose problems . . . to really opening things up.”

Dromgoole shrugged off objections to the closing of one of the city’s oldest theaters.

“It was only built around 1945,” he said.

Angeles Leira oversees urban conservation for the city Planning Department. She confirmed having seen site plans that call for preserving the building in which the Loma is housed but nothing to keep the movies running.

“It looks like the present owners just don’t want it to be used as a theater anymore,” she said.

She said plans call for offices to occupy a space now inhabited by almost 1,000 seats, a single 70-millimeter screen and an Art Deco interior done up in a style reminiscent of the post-war ‘40s.

If developers are intent on demolition, Leira said, the city could do nothing to stop them; the Loma has never been designated as a historical landmark.

“It’s never even been put to a public hearing,” she said.

Asked her feelings about demolition, she said: “I would be most unhappy to see that happen. It would be too bad. That building is really a landmark to the people of Point Loma.”

Bill Richardson, 34, has spent most of his life in San Diego. He runs the Guild Theatre in Hillcrest for the Landmark Theatres chain and describes himself as a film fanatic.

“I love the Loma,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite places in town to go. I love the size of the theater. The Loma was my home for three solid weeks in 1964 when ‘Goldfinger’ became my parents. I saw ‘Ben Hur’ at the Loma. If I’m not mistaken, ‘The Sound of Music’ is the longest-running feature film in the history of San Diego--almost three years at the Loma. To see it die would be even more tragic than what happened to the Fine Arts in Pacific Beach.”

(The Fine Arts, operated by Landmark, was forced to close when the owner of the property--Landmark’s landlord--sold the land for commercial use. The theater has since been demolished.)

“The Loma has been a part of San Diego for so long,” Cinema Society director Friedenberg said. “So many San Diegans had their first date there, or they remember going to it as a kid. It probably provided their first moviegoing experience.

“By going to a multiplex, you lose all of that. You lose it with video, with TV in general. Imagine seeing ‘Gandhi’ on television. One scene includes almost 2 million people. That was meant to be seen at the Loma.”