By Clarence Cromwell
Los Gatos theater lovers, whose core group is Friends of the Arts, have until 5:30 p.m. Jan. 15 to hand the Town Clerk enough signatures of Los Gatos voters to force a referendum they hope will yank the approvals for Old Town's renovation.
But the Friends started collecting signatures just 10 days before the deadline. The last-minute decision to resort to a referendum came last Monday night, when members of the theater preservation group concluded that Old Town's owners, Hunter-Storm, are not serious about renting to Sunnyvale-based California Theater Center.
Hunter-Storm petitioned the town for more than a year for permission to remodel its buildings and construct new retail space on the opposite side of University Avenue. Town Council members gave their consent in December.
Friends of the Arts pleaded with Hunter-Storm to sign a lease with California Theater Center but decided negotiations were going nowhere, so they formulated their plan to yank the rug from beneath Old Town.
The goal of the group is to invalidate Town Ordinance 2025, the one that grants approval for all of Old Town's work. If successful the referendum will block construction of Old Town's new buildings and the underground parking as well as the renovation of the theater.
The referendum process requires the theater supporters to collect signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters in town and present them to the Town Clerk. If the signatures are certified by the county Registrar of Voters' office, the Town Council will have to choose between immediately repealing the ordinance or putting it to a special election.
Former Town Council Member Brent Ventura attended last week's meeting and advised the theater group about the referendum process, said Lynne Kennedy of Friends of the Arts.
If the Old Town ordinance is retracted, theater lovers said, they want Hunter-Storm and the town to meet them at the bargaining table and craft a new ordinance that requires the developer to preserve the Old Town auditorium as a theater.
Kennedy said a previous town ordinance protected the theater, but the Old Town ordinance wipes that requirement away and allows for converting the theater to retail space in one stroke.
"Old Town developers have not explored, seriously, what it would cost to renovate the theater because they don't want to do it," Kennedy said.
Ed Storm told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times on Dec. 16 that a theater could rent the space if it would pay for renovation and if it could pay the rent.
Kennedy, who once performed in the Old Town Theater, said Hunter-Storm should have to give something to the community in exchange for permission to build its huge new retail buildings that will congest traffic and make parking more scarce. Allowing a theater group to rent the space for a lowered fee would repay the community and would draw crowds to the shopping center as well, Kennedy said.
Old Town was expected to submit final plans for the project to the Planning Commission at the commission's first February meeting. Hunter-Storm was planning to begin construction in March, according to a Dec. 31 report on parking by Scott Baker, director of Building and Engineering Services. But that was before the referendum cropped up.
Former Councilmember Ventura said he agrees with the theater group that Hunter-Storm should establish a theater and offer it for a low rent.
"I'm not saying they have to subsidize a theater operation," Ventura said. A "shell of a theater"--just a stage and some seats--would be enough to get the group started, he said. And the troupe should pay a reasonable rent, he said.
Ventura believes a theater overhaul can be had for the same amount the developer would spend to make the space a bookstore.
Any profit lost in offering a lower rent could be made up by the town's not counting the theater in Old Town's parking numbers; since parking is one limiting factor in expanding downtown, that might let the center build another retail space of equal size to the theater.
"I don't think enough analysis was provided on saving the theater," Ventura said.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 15, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved .