Renovate a historic theater, or raze it for apartments?
John Olson
I would enjoy hearing from people with expertise in this area:
Here in downtown San Jose, CA, we have the Jose Theatre, a 1903 vaudeville
theatre. Houdini and Jolson performed there. After vaudeville went
extinct, it showed movies until 1991, and has been closed since. You can
read something about it at http://www.preservation.org
Developers and the City want to raze it and build apartments (priced for
the reasonably well-off), using a $10M redevelopment subsidy from the City.
Building more, and more upscale, downtown housing is City Hall's priority.
They plan to keep the fascade, to foster the illusion of a historic
building.
Preservationists propose renovating it into a performing arts center for
the many groups around town smaller in stature and funding than, say, the
opera and symphony. City and county governments and arts groups alike
agree that arts space is underbuilt today. The preservationists propose a
nonprofit organization to save and reuse the theatre, using a mixture of
funding approaches.
State agencies say that razing the building will jeopardize downtown's
historic district status.
I would appreciate hearing about successes and failures in similar
ventures. Also, I would like to know about the urban-planning significance
in developing downtown entertainment versus apartments. Any opinions on
preserving fascades instead of structures?
Thanks. I believe I can predict some of this group's members' responses to
this, but I hope someone can add something educational.
Some background for context. My opinions:
Downtown San Jose has undergone a huge renovation in the last 10 or 15
years. It had been a declining business, entertainment, and retail center
for a sparsely populated agricultural valley that got covered with
suburbia. Everyone agrees the retail business went in the 1960s or so to
the new suburban shopping malls, and the agricultural economy was replaced
by industry on campuses built over orchards and farmlands, surrounded by
new suburbs built on the same. Finally, even City Hall and the newspaper
bailed out and moved. Downtown became shabby and disreputable, reaching
its nadir in the 1970s and early 80s.
Today, however, downtown is a thriving and attractive business and
entertainment district, with a significant population of software and
Internet-related businesses. Whether you approve of this or not, San Jose
did achieve this turnaround with a lot of public redevelopment money for
hotels, street facelifts, a convention center, theatre, light rail, and
office and apartment developments.
New downtown apartments and townhomes are selling well to people who can
afford to live elsewhere if they wanted to. Other people are buying up and
restoring houses in the surrounding residential neighborhoods, to the
dismay of "affordable housing" advocates.
Office rent and hotel rates are high and space is scarce because companies
seem to want to be downtown. People I know like to work downtown because
of the amenities, even without much retail still.
So, are we better off with a performing arts center or apartments,
according to either theory or practice?