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Stalled renovation plans, lax building code enforcement allowing Alexandria Theatre to decay
posted by
CSWalczak
on
March 22, 2010 at 2:52 pm
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Since 1923, one of San Francisco’s jewels and once a roadshow house, the Egyptian-themed Alexandria Theatre is being allowed to deteriorate and become a home for transients due to stalled redevelopment plans and slow building code enforcement by the city. Although the plans submitted by the theater’s foreign owners include a 250 seat theater (in a building that once sat five times that number), most of the space would be converted to residential and retail use.
Meanwhile, a city loophole has allowed the blight to continue without anyone being held responsible or penalized.
Delays in cleaning the property and developing a more viable use for the space are partly due to economic hardships, as well as a disconnect between city planners and Alexandria Enterprises LLC — the building’s foreign owners — said Supervisor Eric Mar, who represents the district in which the theater is located.
Read the whole story in the San Francisco Examiner.
Comments (4)
Actually, the Alexandria once had eight (rather than five) times the number of seats than that which is proposed for the theater that is supposedly a part of the redevelopment project as the Alexandria once had 2,000 seats.
This kinda thing just makes me sad. I like to think the owners have just gotten in over their heads financially and in thinking SF Planning would be easy to deal with. However my cynical side tells me they didnt want to keep any of the original features and are going to let it decay to the point where they are no longer obliged to and can level the whole thing.
This theatre in SF had many classic 70mm roadshow films during the 60’s. A big flat screen, to bad as many Todd AO 70mm prints played flat here. When Mike Todd died the Todd-AO system went down hill a curved screen was not used in many Todd-AO houses like this one. At least the Alexandria still stands not like I’t Todd-AO neighbor up the street that was demolished the Coronet. South Pacific played in 70mm roadshow at the Alexandria.
I know it hasnt been long, but, any updates?