Hollywood Theatre faces the final curtain

LANDMARKS

After celebrating its 75th anniversary last year, the venerable theatre may not last until its 76th

BY JOHN MACKIE VANCOUVER SUN

  The Hollywood Theatre cel­ebrated its 75th birthday last October. But the legendary Kitsilano cinema may not be around for its 76th.

  Owner David Fairleigh has confirmed the Hollywood will "probably" be closing. But he didn't say when, or what the family plans to do with the prop­erty at 3123 West Broadway.

  "I can't make any comments at this time," said Fairleigh, 67, whose family has owned and operated the 651-seat theatre since 1935. "I'm right in the middle of something, I can't comment right now."

  Alan Franey of the Vancou­ver International Film Festival has been going to the Hollywood since he was a teenager. He thinks Vancouverites will be "shocked" to learn that one of the city's cultural icons may soon be gone.

David Fairleigh and son Vince inside Kitsilano's Hollywood Theatre.

  "It would be a great loss to the neighbourhood, and our sense of what public spaces are for, our historical memory of what they used to be for," said Franey.   "It's a great facade, it's a great place to see films. I think it's near and dear to a lot of our hearts."

  The theatre has an assessed value of $2.426 million, and is rumoured to be on the market for $2.9 million. At that price, said Leonard Schein of Festi­val Cinemas, "they're asking too much to run it as a movie theatre."

  Schein's company leases two neighbourhood theatres, the Park and the Ridge. They may not be around too much longer, either.

  "The whole shopping centre [the Ridge is in] has been put up for sale by our landlord," Schein said. "If someone buys it he or she may decide to tear down the whole shopping cen­tre and build condos and other retail there, but you never know until there's a new buyer. They may decide to hold the location for years, or they may decide to redevelop it."

  Don Luxton of Heritage Van­couver said the city may have to step in if it wants to save the city's dwindling number of neighbourhood theatres. Several old theatres have been knocked down in recent years, including the Varsity, the Impe­rial (last known as the Venus) and the Van East. The city's oldest theatre, the Pantages, has also been condemned and may be torn down.

It would be a great loss to the neighbourhood, and our sense of what public spaces are for, our historical memory of what they used to be for.

ALAN FRANEY

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

  "We have a bigger, broader issue: that there's four theatres that are going to be problem­atic and we could lose, the Hol­lywood, the Ridge, the Park and the Dunbar," said Luxton.

  "Somebody at the city should take a look and see which one of those would make good com­munity spaces. We're restor­ing the York [theatre] on the east side. What about the west side? I think the Ridge, Park and Hollywood are all signifi­cant spaces, and ready to roll — you can use them as com­munity theatres, community space, performance space."

  Luxton said one way to save the theatres would be to bring back the heritage density trans­fer system that the city killed in 2007. Another would be to buy the theatres with the million the city collected 'from developers to build a Coal Harbour Arts Complex, which never built. "Wouldn't it be sensible to buy a couple of small neigh­bourhood theatres?" said Luxton.

  "There's an urgent issue here. The city should examine through its cultural services office what would he the most appropriate use of the Coal Harbour Arts Complex money. Could it be used in different parts of the city to purchase rind run these smaller community centres, rather than concen­trate everything downtown?"

  Franey thinks the potential loss of the Hollywood might stir the "public recognition the space requires to be saved." He also said the film festival would be interested in running the theatre, if it could swing the financing.

  "We have an interest the Hollywood, for sure," said Franey. "We haven't used it for a few years, but this is a very changing world, and I don't know if we can count on any of the theatres we use being avail-able to us, one year to the next. It might not only he something we'd like to consider, it's sonic-thing we may need to consider."