Pasadena Playhouse Auditions Buyers

The owner of the Pasadena Playhouse has put the landmark cultural center up for sale after a 22-year struggle to revive and develop the historic theater.

Pasadena Playhouse Associates, which was organized by real estate developer David Houk, is asking $4.5 million for the Spanish Colonial Revival-style property, which has hosted the premieres of work by such notable playwrights as Eugene O’Neill, Noel Coward and Tennessee Williams. The Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre of California will continue to stage plays at the facility under a long-term lease.

“I’ve been working on this since 1979. It’s time to get some kind of resolution to this,” Houk said.

Houk has been involved in an often awkward and bitter relationship with the city of Pasadena and the theater operating company over financial issues and control and management of the Pasadena Playhouse. The theater’s financial fortunes have seesawed since reopening in the mid-1980s, and it has periodically needed assistance from the city.

Houk’s Pasadena Playhouse Associates, which has invested millions in the theater renovation, has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for several years.

“It’s been a very challenging project both from the city’s point of view and from Mr. Houk’s,” said Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogart, who helped negotiate the original development agreement with Houk.

About half of the 75,000-square-foot theater on El Molino Avenue near Colorado Boulevard is leased virtually free and indefinitely to the city of Pasadena, which in turn subleases it to the theater company. The lease includes the nearly 700-seat auditorium on the ground floor and an adjacent gift shop.

The remaining space, including a restaurant space, second-floor theater and six-story tower, are available for development. Houk’s group has explored over the years the possibility of developing the tower--a former acting-school site--and adjacent property owned by the city into a mixed-use residential project. But those discussions failed to produce any development contracts.

“It will be marketed to the patrons of the arts and developers,” said Coldwell Banker agent Bill Stimming, who is handling the sale. “It’s known worldwide by people in the arts.”

The sale of the playhouse has been discussed for several years but has never been marketed to the public since Houk acquired it. Houk said his group had planned to sell the property a few years ago in a private transaction to the theater operating company. But that deal fell through and forced Houk’s ownership group to file for bankruptcy protection.

Houk said the three-way control of the Playhouse needs to be resolved. “It’s got to give, because it doesn’t work for anybody.”

The chairman of the board of the Pasadena Playhouse State Theatre of California, David M. Davis, said it would take the help of a major benefactor before his group would consider taking ownership of the entire facility.

“We have done quite a good job getting the playhouse out of debt, and I’m reluctant to take on additional debt to buy it,” Davis said.

The playhouse is rooted in the theater company founded in 1916 by Gilmor Brown, an East Coast actor. The playhouse, which was built in 1925, and its prestigious school boomed in the late 1920s and early ‘30s as a training ground for the motion picture business.

The preservation and revival of the theater have been a civic issue since the early 1970s, when it was threatened with demolition. The city purchased the playhouse in 1975 and a few years later reached agreement with Houk for the facility’s redevelopment.

The complex is the cornerstone and namesake of the Playhouse District, an area that civic leaders hope will become a thriving cultural and retail center.

“My goal,” Bogart said, “would be for a new owner who uses the space for productive purposes that do not conflict in any way with the playhouse.”