Venerable Bay Area movie theater to close for good
Shattuck Cinemas, a 10-monitor motion picture theater in the coronary heart of downtown Berkeley, is shuttering for superior, marking still yet another major reduction for the Bay Region movie local community immediately after the new closures of the California Theatre and the Embarcadero Heart in San Francisco, as well as the considerably murky foreseeable future of the Castro Theatre.
Identified for its glittering marquee, aged-environment attraction and ornate interior adorned with hieroglyphics on the walls, the cinema housed in what made use of to be Hink’s Section Retailer opened in Might 1988 and has been operated by Landmark Theatres considering that 1994. Margot Gerber, a spokesperson for the chain, confirmed the closure to SFGATE in an e-mail on Thursday, stating that the “landlord is shifting forward with redevelopment of the property” and that it would “close helpful June 1st.”
Some patrons caught wind of the Shattuck’s demise before that 7 days. Belinda Perez, who life in Oakland, claimed she was owning a drink at Lot 68 Lounge in advance of a screening of “On the Depend of Three” on Tuesday night time when she overheard the bartender speaking about the closure with one more customer. Later on, she confirmed the news with an employee at the concession stand, who stated the theater’s final day in procedure was Might 24. Landmark’s site at present does not demonstrate any screenings immediately after that day.
“I was unquestionably astonished and also unhappy,” said Perez, who has been going to see motion pictures at the Shattuck about two or 3 occasions a thirty day period considering the fact that she moved to the Bay Area in 2005. “I was truly satisfied when they reopened past yr after the pandemic closed it down, and it would seem like they do seriously very good organization. Now I’m wanting to know what will happen… There are loads of theaters in the Bay Region, but not all of them demonstrate videos like the Shattuck does.”
A undertaking proposed for the developing at 2065 Kittredge St. would demolish the theater to make way for an 8-story, 188-unit student housing enhancement with 3,625 sq. ft of retail space, as well as two public courtyards on Kittredge Road and Allston Way, in accordance to a approach submitted to the metropolis of Berkeley very last thirty day period. The venture is continue to pending approval.
This leaves Berkeley with just a person film theater downtown – the Regal UA on Shattuck – and although the Elmwood is nearby on College or university Avenue, it has just three screens. In the meantime, Landmark will continue to work four theaters in the Bay Region – the Opera Plaza Cinema in downtown San Francisco, the Albany Twin, the Piedmont in Oakland and the Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto.
“The Shattuck’s closure is actually troubling for an previously shrinking cinema local community,” claimed Courtney Fellion, a lecturer in cinema at San Francisco Point out College who teaches lessons about film exhibition. Noting the Castro Theatre’s altering programming and the reduction of the San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art’s movie program, she additional, “It really is also a single of the few theaters in the East Bay that demonstrates up to date foreign and impartial cinema. I am not certain how these holes will be crammed by preferred chains like Regal and AMC.”
Perez also lamented the loss of the Shattuck for its acquainted ambiance and claimed she noticed numerous of the identical workforce doing the job there for several years.
“It would seem like a serious neighborhood is being lost,” she mentioned.