The constructing housing the Grand Phantasm Cinema, an independently owned single-screen arthouse that’s been occupying a College District nook for greater than 50 years, is on the market. This was the second announcement this week concerning the destiny of a longtime Seattle movie show, following Thursday’s information of the upcoming closure of the Regal Meridian 16 downtown.
The homeowners are asking for $2.8 million for the construction that features the movie show, a Venezuelan restaurant and an electronics restore retailer, in response to a promotional flyer from actual property firm Kidder Mathews. The flyer means that the positioning may maintain a 65-foot-high, 31-unit house constructing.
The information was first reported by the Seattle Every day Journal of Commerce.
Brian Alter, longtime supervisor of the nonprofit Grand Phantasm, stated he and the remainder of the all-volunteer employees (about 30 in whole) simply realized of the sale itemizing this week. “I believe it should seemingly be demolished,” he stated of the constructing, noting in a Friday phone interview that it’s an outdated and unremarkable construction.
He stated that he’s about to signal a two-year lease, which ought to give the employees time to make plans to relocate the theater. “What we pay for lease could be very inexpensive for what we’re — a bit of tiny movie show. I hope we will discover some place that works for the kind of area that we want.”
These conversations will start quickly; for now, it’s enterprise as standard on the cozy 70-seat theater, which started life as The Film Home in 1970 and has been open repeatedly ever since, displaying an assortment of cult favorites, unbiased movies and classics (most notably, its standard annual vacation screenings of “It’s a Great Life”).
Although the Grand Phantasm, like all native cinemas, suffered by means of an extended pandemic closure in 2020-21, Alter stated ticket gross sales have bounced again properly. Enterprise is “fairly good, nearly as good because it’s ever been,” he stated. Although he had deliberate to retire from day-to-day work on the cinema this yr (he’s been supervisor for 12 or 13 years, and a volunteer there since 2003), he’s prepared to hitch the opposite volunteers to find the theater a brand new house.
“Once I first got here to observe a film right here 20 years in the past, I used to be like, it is a actually cool, distinctive place,” he stated. “All of us sort of really feel the identical method. We’ve bought an excellent bunch of volunteers who’re actually devoted, and I believe between all people, placing our brains collectively, hopefully we’ll have the ability to discover a new spot and transfer it and simply proceed.”
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