Theater will keep ‘vintage’ facade under deal
By: Joshua Sabatini
Examiner Staff Writer
June 29, 2009
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| Past and present: Preservationists and the developer agreed to a plan that would allow the Metro Theatre on Union Street to reopen with the same exterior, but featuring shops and a gym inside. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner) |
When the decades-old Metro Theatre on Union Street shut its doors three years ago, its future became embroiled in a political debate.
However, discussions between preservationists and the developer will likely result in a type of landmark designation that could allow the site to reopen soon. Under the deal, the theater’s exterior would be restored to reflect its “vintage heyday” while also including ground-floor boutique retail shops and a high-end Equinox fitness gym.
Today, the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on legislation to give the theater landmark status.
A movement to retain it as a valuable part of The City was led by the influential San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, which works to preserve movie theaters. The foundation and the developer recently struck an agreement that resulted in a letter of intent indicating the developer’s willingness to preserve interior features like the elaborate murals and columns.
Developer Sebastyen Jackovics is fine with officially making the exterior a landmark, but does not want the same for the interior because he seeks flexibility as construction plans move forward.
Jackovics has said the project is being driven by $10 million from Equinox, and delays could sink it.
His position is supported by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, in whose district the theater is located, and merchants who complain the shuttered building is a drag on Union Street businesses.
“I’m hoping it will come out of committee,” Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who sits on the land use committee, said of the landmark legislation.
Maxwell’s remaining concern is “getting some wording that will kind of ensure the murals will be saved” — in other words, a stronger commitment than just a letter of intent. That commitment could come either through a proposal to give landmark status to the murals or through putting language in the resolution reflecting that intent.
“I’m trying to be sensitive to the developers who say they want flexibility,” Maxwell said.
The theater, located at 2055 Union St., was designed and constructed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style in 1924 by Reid Brothers, a San Francisco architecture firm, and has undergone several renovations.
