North Park Theatre’s Fate May Fall to the Hands That Want to Save It

The city would be “well-served” to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with a private foundation dedicated to reopening and restoring the 61-year-old North Park Theatre, a city official said Monday.

Last week, the city manager’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee voted 4 to 0 to recommend to the City Council that, for one year, it negotiate exclusively with the North Park Theatre Foundation in determining the theater’s fate.

“We still have another hoop to go through, and that’s the council itself,” said Martin Gregg, head of the nonprofit foundation, which hopes to raise enough money to bring the building to code and then fill it with bookings before a thorough renovation.

The 1,186-seat theater was closed in 1987 after a city engineering report deemed it “unsafe and unfit” for public occupancy. The report noted that it would take $1.4 million to bring the building to code and an additional $2.3 million to make the one-time movie palace usable as a theater. The theater Park is at the corner of 29th Street and University Avenue.

Gregg, who as head of the now-defunct California Performing Arts Center booked events into the North Park until it closed three years ago, believes the building could be brought to code for under $500,000. The foundation has hired a Pasadena architect skilled in the restoration of theaters to conduct an appraisal of the building in early July, Gregg said.

Although the city engineering report estimated that more than $1 million will be needed to fix the building, a lower appraisal from a qualified expert “would be welcome,” Rhea Kuhlman, assistant property director for the city manager’s office, said Monday.

“Of course, the city would accept that,” Kuhlman said. “The issue was never how much money it would take, but could the job be done properly, and for what amount? Certainly, it’s possible to create a set of plans that would cost less than the city estimated.”