A Historic San Francisco Theater Might Finally Be Redeveloped Into Housing

The historic Alexandria Theater, located in San Francisco’s Richmond District, closed in 2004, and as the building has sat empty, development proposals have come and gone. As officials look for sites to add more homes, city leaders just cleared the way for a new proposal.

On Tuesday, San Francisco supervisors approved the creation of a special district that would allow the theater to be redeveloped into an eight-story building with 75 apartments, each with two to three bedrooms inside, and at least 12% set aside for affordable housing units.

Supervisor Connie Chan, who represents the Richmond and sponsored the legislation creating the special district, said she wanted to add more housing for families within her neighborhood and wanted it to be built in an area that would not displace small businesses.

“The Alexandria Theater is a great example — it really needs to have a new use, and it can be for housing, so here we are,” she said to KQED. “This approach helped us to bring more people and have growth that really works for the community and at the same time, we make sure that people who are here — small businesses and residents, aging homeowners, can continue to stay.”

The special district requires the building to maintain some of its historic features, including its marquee, interior chandelier and murals. Chan and leaders of some neighborhood groups pointed to the project as a way to add housing in a thoughtful way that maintains the character of the neighborhood.

The theater opened in 1923 and was constructed by the Reid brothers, who also designed the third version of Cliff House, the Balboa Theater in the Outer Richmond and the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. After the Alexandria Theater closed in 2004, it changed ownership several times as plans for redevelopment stalled.

Developers proposed building a smaller theater with retail space on the ground level. A later proposal included an indoor swimming pool with classroom and office space on the top floors. Both proposals preserved the historic qualities of the building, though it is not officially recognized as a landmark.

The city granted the necessary permits to start construction on both proposals, but the developers eventually scrapped the projects, most recently due to financing constraints from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Woody LaBounty, president of preservationist organization San Francisco Heritage, said while the building’s time as a movie theater has passed, the building itself has unique qualities that make the Richmond an architecturally interesting neighborhood.

“It was created with this unique Egyptian revival style that was very much of the ‘20s, and because it had all these very attractive design elements, we’d like to see that preserved and kept for any new project,” he said. “It adds housing while continuing to provide some sort of character that speaks to the Richmond District’s history.”

The district, along with other neighborhoods in the northern and western parts of the city, faces efforts from city officials to allow taller buildings to be added to a historically flatter part of the city. The city’s current plan, which is making its way through various departments and committees, aims to allow up to 12-story buildings along commercial corridors and busy thoroughfares in those neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, housing activists worry that a piecemeal approach to allowing housing to be built may not yield effective results to the state’s housing crisis. Jane Natoli, San Francisco Organizing Director for pro-housing group YIMBY Action, moved to the Richmond in 2013, almost 10 years after the theater shut down. Twelve years later, the theater remains empty. She said she wants something to be built there, but she doesn’t like the way the city approached developing this spot.

“I don’t really like special use districts because they’re part of what makes our planning process so complicated in San Francisco,” she said. “While I don’t think that’s the greatest tool… I do think that it’s important to strike while the iron is hot. We have an opportunity to actually move forward with a development proposal here that I think makes sense.”