More seats; more parking spaces needed. The ratio for the parking spaces to the number of theater seats in the theater industry is 1 car space per 3 seats. Downey, in its attempt to shoehorn the theater into this specific block, already changed the parking code to one car per five theater seats. The theater is scheduled to pay for two floors of the parking structure. For his 2 levels Krikorian will be paying $480,000 ($48,000 per year for 10 years, no interest).
The current plans are for a two story structure to be built where the current parking lot is. That is the ground floor plus one elevated floor, which would mean that he is getting credit for the ground floor already owned by the downtown merchants. And somehow, the merchant’s one floor and Krikorian’s two floors still add up to only two floors. Now it would seem that as a minimum it should be three floors. One for the people who have already paid for it, and two more for the Krikorian theater which, even with 2 floors for itself, will be way underparked, especially with the newly proposed additional screens.
Last week our city Redevelopment Agency put on what can only be called a dog and pony show to tell the downtown merchants how they could buy extra parking spaces at $2,800 each in the new parking garage to help pay for 2 “extra” floors so that 4 floors could be built (that is ground plus three elevated). The city feels if they can sell enough of the extra parking spaces, they can justify the extra million dollars to build the supposedly “extra” 2 floors. Many of these merchants paid tens of thousands of dollars for the current spaces and now are asked to buy again if they want to do anything else with their property.
This does not bode well for the future. I remember how this theater development was going to be the spark plug that would start a renaissance of the whole downtown. It would seem if we can afford 2 million dollars for a couple of basketball courts at Apollo Park for Paramount kids to play on, we can surely find one million for the two more floors to make a 4 level parking structure: one ground floor plus 3 elevated and then Krikorian will have the 3 floors he needs for the extra screens and the merchants will have the one they already own to handle their new nighttime activities when and if the wondrously revitalized downtown materializes.
If the theater can not operate in the free market and the residents of this town want to make a $2 million subsidy to have a movie theater, then that is their choice. But if we are going to do that, let’s get the best location for our money. I know it is heresy, but it does sound like the movie theater we all want so much is just in the wrong place. The old Paramount Chevrolet lot at Firestone and Paramount just looks so inviting, and would make such a beautiful presentation.
For what it costs to build that parking garage, the city could buy the old Chevrolet lot, write down the price to a $1 million value, ground lease it to the theater for 35 years at $100,000 per year with capped cost of living increases and be done with it. That would work and would make more sense.
Leave the downtown merchant’s La Reina Street parking lot alone, build a park on the north end of the block and let’s put some green space downtown.