Nearly 100 Alamedans Come Out to Protest the Megaplex

Please see also:
http://www.stopalamedamegaplex.com/
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Next City Council meeting on this issue is set for either August 2nd or August 16th . . . stay tuned.
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Crowd calls for 'no' vote on multiplex
Protesters say proposed cinema, garage don't fit with character of town
By Hanna Tamrat and William Brand, STAFF WRITERS

ALAMEDA — With a city plan to build a seven-screen multiplex cinema and a six-story parking structure next to the historic Alameda Theater headed for a City Council showdown, opponents of the big project turned out in force Saturday morning.

For two hours, a crowd, which reached nearly 100 at one point, carried picket signs in front of the theater on Central Avenue near Park Street and handed out fliers urging the City Council to stop the megaplex.

A six-story concrete parking garage and a big block multiplex simply don't fit in Alameda, said Ron Schaeffer, a longtime Alamedan and one of the protesters. "We want a theater, but not this," Schaeffer said.

"Look around Alameda, there are shady, tree-lined streets, It's like a town out of the 1920s or 1930s," he said. "But that doesn't mean that people who live here aren't sophisticated and aware."

The city Planning Board approved the estimated $25 million project last month. But citizens organized as Stop the Megaplex have appealed the decison to the City Council. The council is scheduled to hear the appeal on Aug. 16.

The plan calls for a seven-screen, two-story cineplex with ground-floor retail and a six-level parking structure downtown.

Funding would come in the form of bonds paid by the city's redevelopment property tax increment and other public financing. The plan has drawn support from Park Street merchants and other citizens eager to bring movie screens, parking, people and sales tax revenue to Alameda.

"Alameda has been waiting for a theater for years," Mayor Beverly Johnson said.

The 45-seat Central Cinema, at Central Avenue and Ninth Street, is the only theater now operating on the Island.

A growing number of Alamedans are opposing the multiplex project, which they say is a departure from the vision to preserve the Island's historic character that emerged from talks between city officials and the community about six years ago.

"It became a runaway project," said Ani Dimusheva of Alameda.

With more than 600 petition signatures to stop the project in her hands, Dimusheva said people are just beginning to realize the scope of the project is larger than they had initially thought.


The existing art-deco theater, which opened in 1932, is a registered landmark. It was extensively remodelled in the 1970s by Hollywood producer Robert L. Lippert, who learned to love films and movie houses as a child growing up in Alameda and attending the historic theater.

The city declined an offer from Lippert to give the town the theater. He died in 1976 and the theater closed as a movie house in 1979.

It seats about 500 people. It would reopen to show opening-night movies and provide an entrance to the new cineplex, which is expected to host more than 1,000 guests and occupy a 13,200-square-foot lot.

Longtime Alameda residents such as Joseph Inocencio, a former warehouse worker, and Helen Dean, owner of Toy Safari on Park Street, said Friday they miss the historic Alameda Theater they frequented as kids and when they were older.

Both support the addition of the cineplex to keep kids from going to other cities looking for a theater and to bring other people to the area.

While Inocencio thinks the parking garage will help traffic congestion in the area, Dean thinks its bulky design will detract from the structure of the nearby Twin Towers United Methodist Church of Alameda and the theater itself. The garage is expected to provide 350 spaces.

Frank Lopez, owner of Silversword Jewelry and Gift for 27 years, said Friday the biggest complaint he gets from his clients is the lack of parking in the area.

Lopez favors additional parking but thinks maintaining more than three theaters seven days a week in Alameda is not financially feasible.

"You can lead a horse to a water, but you can't make him drink," he said of the multiplex theater plan.

Contact Hanna Tamrat at htamrat [at] angnewspapers.com. Contact William Brand at bbrand [at] angnewspapers.com.