Culver City : Drive-In to Stay Open

The Studio Drive-In has been reprieved.

The Culver City Redevelopment Agency this week decided to allow the theater, which closed last month, to reopen and operate through the end of the year while the city decides what to do with the site.

The 9 1/2-acre property, owned by the redevelopment agency, was to be replaced with condominiums, townhouses and a senior-citizen housing project. But the city’s first choice of developers, Watt Homes Inc., pulled out of the job in November after a disagreement with the agency over building the project in phases.

Two weeks ago, the agency broke off negotiations with its second choice of developer, D & S Corp. and its partner, Ring Financial. The developers had asked to renegotiate their purchase agreement for the land, saying the recession had reduced its value.

The redevelopment agency also decided to reevaluate how the site should be developed and to put the land on the market again when the economy improves.

Pacific Theatres will rent the site from the agency for $500 a month, through April 1, the drive-in “winter season” when the Studio Drive-In and several other Pacific drive-ins are closed. From April through the end of the year, Pacific will pay $1,000 a month in rent.

Before the city acquired the land, Pacific Theatres had been leasing the site from a private owner for $255,000 a year, or $700 a day, but it was operating at a deficit at this rate, according to city staff.