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Playing the Palace is everyone's dream
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A cynic, Oscar Wilde said, is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
By that definition, Joel Campos is a cynic. At least on this particular issue.
Campos is a hard-working businessman, who, in 2004, paid around $4 million to buy the abandoned Pagoda/Palace Theater on Washington Square. He's done well with his investments since coming here from Mexico (and, in the process, has also given us La Corneta, which, for my money, dishes up some of the best Mexican food in San Francisco). Now he wants a payoff for his North Beach investment. The 20 high-end condominiums and ground-floor restaurant location that would replace the old theater represent a very handsome payoff, indeed.
It would certainly be more lucrative than refurbishing the Palace as a single-screen theater, something the neighborhood would dearly like to see happen, and something Campos says he has no intention of doing.
"Theaters are a thing of the past," he said in an interview Tuesday. "Even the big complexes are in trouble."
As San Francisco fights to retain its dwindling number of single-screen theaters, it's hard to argue with his basic logic. But that's where Wilde's aphorism comes into play. Resurrecting the Palace Theater as a single-screen movie theater would be an expensive proposition, probably a money-losing one. It would be unfair to expect anyone to sign up for that.
But remodeling it as a multi-use complex -- live theater, cinema, community space, conference center, library -- could be a moneymaker, while giving North Beach something of real value right in the heart of the neighborhood.
That requires vision, however, and Campos made it clear that he's a businessman, not a visionary.
(Told that several live theater companies, including the S.F. Playhouse and Lorraine Hansberry, are currently looking for permanent homes in the city, Campos said, "You need 60,000 square feet? Pay me $5 a square foot for 60,000 square feet and I'll give you a 30-year lease. Show me the money.")
"I'm not a philanthropist. I need to make money. I've thought about the best way to develop (the Palace), and it's a restaurant and some condominiums."
Well, if it's going to be condominiums, the current proposal is not only weak, but has the whiff of desperation about it. Campos bought the theater in June 2004 and then, in 2007, sought to acquire the entire southwest corner of Columbus and Filbert, including the brick garage fronting on Filbert, for a far more ambitious project.
When he didn't get the adjacent lots and the plan fizzled, Campos started thinking about maximizing his profit at the Palace site. Et voila, high-end condos over a restaurant and a little retail space.
Neighborhood activists were taken aback, because Campos had talked a pretty good game when he first bought the Palace, even holding out the possibility that some theater space might be retained. It was an idea that the neighborhood happily embraced, coming as it did in the wake of the Muriel Theater disappointment. (Campos, apparently, has since developed amnesia: On Tuesday, he denied ever mentioning the possibility of including theater space.)
Aside from the property-rights zealots, who would defend Campos' right to build a sewage treatment plant if that's what he wanted to do, there doesn't appear to be much genuine enthusiasm for the condos-over-retail proposal. What support there is seems motivated more by a desire to see something -- anything -- finally done with the site, rather than from any real excitement over the current plan.
You can sympathize, up to a point. The old theater is a wreck, an eyesore. But when you consider that this site occupies a prominent place facing Washington Square -- which, incidentally, is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, due in no small part to the quality of the buildings that surround it -- you want to be very careful. Whatever gets built there will be there for a long, long time. This isn't golf. You can't take a mulligan on a botched job. The plywood will have to do until someone comes up with a suitable design.
It certainly isn't the current proposal. The design, by the firm of Naylor & Chu, doesn't rise to the occasion at all. It barely rises to the mediocre. Located someplace else, it would be just another cheesy building. Located here, it's an atrocity. Even Campos, the hard-headed businessman and anti-aesthete, seems to be having second thoughts.
"I'm not happy with the design," he said Tuesday. If true, this represents an about-face for Campos, who was singing the praises of the Naylor & Chu renderings at a local pep rally not two months ago. I asked him whether he'd made his displeasure known to his architects. "Yes." Are they doing anything about it? "I hope so."
I hope so, too.
In the spirit of moving things forward and advancing the project, neighborhood residents, advocates and architects, including some members of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, created basic concept sketches offering two designs more compatible with the character around the square. These schematics, which take the condos and restaurant space as factors, have been shared with Campos.
Both schemes suggest retaining the original structure's basic art deco/moderne scale, massing and style, while carrying them out in a more refined and contemporary way. Focusing on the existing neighborhood context would reinforce the structure's compatibility not only with its adjacent neighbor to the south but with other buildings on the square, including the post office, the Italian Athletic Club, and even the church.
Perhaps these rough sketches, provided free of charge by neighborhood architects who want to see a proper job done, helped influence Campos' change of heart.
Whatever he ends up doing with the Palace, Campos has got a long road in front of him. City planners have already told him that the current design won't fly as is, so he's essentially back to square one.
