Fire Guts Theater in Santa Ana

A predawn fire that burned for more than three hours gutted the vacant Broadway Theater in downtown Santa Ana early today.

About 100 firefighters battled the blaze, including crews from the Orange County Fire Department, Santa Ana fire spokeswoman Sharon Frank said.

A police officer on patrol reported the fire about 2:40 a.m., Frank said. Firefighters were able to keep the blaze from spreading to adjoining buildings, and it was extinguished about 6 a.m., she said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. Fire officials said the building is probably a total loss, but they will not know until the end of the week whether the three-story structure’s walls can be preserved, Deputy City Manager Jan Perkins said.

The theater, thought to be more than 50 years old, was purchased by the city for $900,000 in 1987 as part of Centerpointe, a major downtown redevelopment project that was to have included a hotel and and office complex.

Value Almost ‘Nil’

Perkins said the purchase price represented the value of the land, because the dilapidated building’s worth was “practically nil.”

Developers of the project backed out last year after marketing studies showed that a large downtown hotel was not viable. The city has not yet contracted with another developer to build on the site, which extends east from the theater’s location on Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets to Ross Street.

The theater was once part of the Fox Theater chain, Frank said. A fire in the 1950s destroyed much of the building. In the years before its purchase by the city, the theater was leased to a company that showed Spanish-language films.

City Real Estate Manager Bob Hoffman said the theater’s ultimate fate would have been left up to the developers who buy the site. “Our plan was not to demolish it until we had a developer on the site on the chance that he would incorporate it into a larger development, either as a theater or just preserving the walls.”

Hoffman said, however, that the chances that a developer would preserve the building as a theater were slim. “Large theaters in downtown are considered white elephants today.”