Developer Plans to Breathe Life Into Historic Palace Theatre

Tom Gilmore, an aggressive proponent of revitalizing the historic district of downtown Los Angeles, has purchased another once-grand property--the 1911-vintage Palace Theatre at Broadway and 6th Street. Gilmore plans to renovate the French Renaissance-style building’s long-vacant office space and move his firm’s headquarters there.

Gilmore & Associates is already at work on an ambitious $32-million renovation of three historic-core buildings dubbed the Old Bank district, and has agreed to buy the abandoned St. Vibiana’s Cathedral nearby and transform the property into a multiuse complex with a hotel, restaurant, school and apartments. The former church itself is to become a performing arts center.

At the Palace, Gilmore plans to keep showing first-run movies for the time being. The theater is among the Southland’s oldest operating cinemas and is managed by Metropolitan Theatres. But Gilmore and partners Charles Loveman and Jerri Perrone said their goal is to return the venue, originally known as the Orpheum, to its live-entertainment roots.

“It was once a truly great theater,” Gilmore said, adding that Harry Houdini, Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields were among those who trod its stage.

Gilmore & Associates purchased the property for about $3.75 million from a family trust that had owned it for decades.

The bulk of the acquisition and renovation financing came through a Tokai Bank of California lending program aimed exclusively at the historic core, which includes scores of structures that once comprised L.A.’s predominant financial center and theater district.

“There’s some leap of faith involved” in financing renovation of business and residential space that hasn’t been occupied for many years, said Richard Koon, the senior vice president overseeing Tokai Bank’s real estate industries group.

But he said Tokai has been lending to mostly residential and retail projects in and around the downtown core for a decade without experiencing substantial setbacks.

Gilmore & Associates plans to move from the Pacific Center on 6th Street to the Palace when the renovation is complete this spring.