Harding Theatre back on the market
After a significant outcry by neighborhood and preservation activists, the Harding Theatre is back on the market for $2.35 million dollars.
For a bit of background on the single screen theatre at 616 Divisadero between Grove and Hayes, see the web site dedicated to saving the theatre.
The theatre was purchased quickly a couple of years ago by local developer and real estate agent Michael Klestoff for $1.6 million. Only after his plans were approved by the city preliminarily did folks in the area start to make a stink about it. In the interim, however, the site has gained in value dramatically. Since all of Klestoff’s attempts to turn the space into mixed-use housing and commercial met with tremendous opposition, he really had no choice but to put it back up for sale.
That begs the question: what now? Who’s going to pay the going rate for the land/building who can’t re-develop the site? There’s no way that someone can turn that site into something viable with a purchase price that high, but the free market would say that it’s easily worth that much.
Idealism is great, but right now we need housing. I grew up working in a small theatre and have as much nostalgia as anyone in San Francisco for the single-screen movie house, but the opportunity to make this work was two years ago when the parcel was on the market. Not now. Not at this price. Not without someone with more stock options than investment sense.
Does anyone else see an Armory-like battle in the works? Does anyone in the neighborhood really want to see this building shuttered up and covered with graffitti for the next 10 years while the activists fight anyone that comes along?
The city will not help make this into a community space. The Supervisors may just fight about it and delay any sort of progress, but that leaves private developers to make it work. And they need to justify it financially.
Heck, I’m a neighbor and have been for eight years. What I want to see is neighborhood vibrancy. I want to see more restaurants, more commercial, and more housing. We have a definite shortage of community spaces, but that is NOTHING compared to the lack of housing that we’re dealing with.
Losing historic spaces sucks. Period. But this is a valuable piece of real estate and it’s time to work with whomever buys it and make it into something that the neighborhood can be proud of: a mixed-use development with more housing.
Update – 8/24
I also have the link to the MLS listing for the sale. It mentions (in a non-public area of the listing) that the lot is in the process of being split so the parcel on Divisadero will be separated from the lot on Hayes. I would assume he’s only selling the Divisadero parcel at this point and keeping the Hayes parcel for his own development. This would increase dramatically the current value property vs. his purchase price. I would assume we’ll see some housing put on the Hayes parcel, then.
The original building wraps around to Hayes Street. If the lots get split, the building will have to be demolished, at least partially…
