Berkeley group makes last-ditch appeal to stop demolition of historic theater
On Tuesday evening, a group of Berkeley residents went before the City Council in a last-ditch effort to prevent the demolition of a historic downtown theatre.
It's part of the ongoing push to build more housing, which the opponents say has all but stalled in the city.
The United Artists Theater in Berkeley opened to great fanfare in 1932, owned by the movie studio created by silent film stars Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. It was built in the opulent art deco style of the time, and the UA was considered the most luxurious of all the city's cinema palaces. Decades later, it would be partitioned off into a multiplex, but Rose Ellis remembers that, even then, it retained its splendor.
"I would come here and, just like people in the Depression, I would marvel at the beauty and the uniqueness," she said. "And I knew, even as a child, that this could never be done again."
But now, it's about to be undone. A developer bought the property and plans to build housing, retaining only the theatre's front facade and lobby area. The rest of the cavernous structure is meant to be demolished.
"It's great to build in the downtown. We agree," said Laura Linden. "But it doesn't have to come at the cost of this highly valuable landmark theatre."
Linden joined Ellis in establishing a group called "Save the Berkeley UA Theatre." They say the city made a mistake when it granted the developer an exemption from CEQA laws that, they say, would have taken the structure's historic value into account.
"There's, I think, a real legal argument to be made that this theatre is still protected under CEQA, as it stands now," said Linden.
So, why did the city exempt the project from CEQA?
"Legal threats," she said. "The city is, to be fair, under serious threat of lawsuits by the developer. And all of these new state laws make it much easier for the developer to sue."
But those laws are intended to encourage housing construction, and while there certainly has been a lot of that along Shattuck Avenue in recent years, Linden said, right now, most of it has come to a halt because of inflation, interest rate hikes and supply chain problems. She points to a project they're calling "the crater" just a block away. Another grand movie theatre, Shattuck Cinemas, was demolished and the property has now sat for nearly a year as simply a big hole in the ground.
"That really is an abandoned project. And that destroyed a beloved theatre and several other historic structures. And they just bailed."
They're afraid the same thing will happen to the UA, that the developer will move to demolish it quickly without any intention to build anytime soon.
"It's a shame and a tragedy to just let somebody demolish it," said Rose Ellis. "This theatre symbolizes, to me, 'Berkeley.' The best of Berkeley, the beauty of Berkeley. And to tear it down means that we're just going to be a 'Generic Town, USA,' that nobody cares about, nobody wants to come to."
The theatre preservation group said they don't have much optimism that the city will reverse any decisions at this point. They said they're hoping that public sentiment may convince the builder to hold off demolishing the theatre at least until funding for the project has been secured.
Times have changed and big-box housing is now valued more than beauty and grandeur. But some may wonder if, in 100 years, anyone will be fighting to preserve what they're building today.
