But clearly it's not a dealbreaker to operation so there goes that excuse....
It’s not really an excuse, so much as it is just a point at how limited the building’s reuse prospects are. If it’s not a film theatre then its next best option would be a live theatre, right? But even there its prospects are tight.
I’ll fully concede, however, that the lack of back-rooms might not be a complete deal breaker — at least wholly. Upon further examination, there was a time, following Famous Players pulling the plug on it, that the Paramount operated as a live-event space. Hell, even the Edmonton Opera pressed it into service while the Jubilee was being renovated. However, it ultimately failed in its live role, in part due to its space restrictions. Between 2004 and 2005 it struggled hard and could only successfully attract a dozen bookings a month
at most. That lack of success led to talks of it maybe becoming a nightclub (like New City at the old Odeon) or a grocery store instead and was a direct reason it was sold to Procura for redevelopment in October 2005.
So, with that in mind, the building’s only viable alternative (at least as anything worthwhile) would be returning to a movie theatre. Frankly I’d love to see it! It’s a beautiful building and it’d be great to see it reanimate a section of Jasper. However, I sincerely doubt a national chain like Cineplex would try their hand at running it given their huge focus on suburban multiplexes. As you suggest, that leaves something like Metro Cinema or Magic Lantern to fill the void, but I don’t know if they could pull it off. Then-owner Kelly Pope leased it out to the Edmonton Downtown Development Corp — another community-focused, non-profit company — who tried their hand at successfully running it (as a live venue, not a theatre, but still) and they couldn’t pull it off. The looming threat of modernizing was another massive deterrent to its success, with then-director of the E.D.D.C., Susan McGee, estimating the projected cost as being upwards of $200,000 — a not inconsequential sum for a non-profit.
Coupled with that (much as I hate to say it), I don’t think Joe Edmontonian is ready for a standalone downtown cinema — truly a sad indictment of how far we still have to go as a city. One needs to look no further than Landmark Theatres at City Centre. It’s a nice cinema and I go there when I have the choice, but even with the huge City Centre parkade it can’t draw suburbanites through its doors regularly. I’ve been to plenty of showings there and it’s almost always a ghost town. If a suburban-styled multiplex in a heated mall with on-site parking can't draw people in I have serious reservations that a freestanding one, sans the parking, UltraAVX, Imax, or whatever, could.
I’d wager much of the Garneau and Princess’ success is owed to their location. Strathcona, McKernan, and Garneau are a hotbed of young-adults, students, more-urban-minded-types, artsy-folk. The kinds who prefer independent/local-run places, something within walking distance, the more curated selection... Not saying that those types of people don’t live Downtown or in Oliver obviously, but I imagine it’s in lower concentration and wouldn’t be able to sustain a theatre of that type as well in the Paramount's location.
I do find it rather peculiar how the preservation argument is minimized here DESPITE WAY more actual history being made in the Paramount than some other so-called "threatened" buildings... After all this was the theatre that the Premier had a weekly radio show from... Not my political stripe but certainly an important distinction to make.
Now to tie everything up, that’s why I’m not advocating for a full building retention here. It’s not because I don’t value its history (
I’ve done my part trying to correct a historical misattribution about the Paramount in the past) or that I’m a dunce who has some weird flip-flopping standard of what should be or shouldn’t be saved (assuming you mean my stance on the Archibald Block here, given the “so-called ‘threatened’ buildings” comment), but I see it as the best case scenario here. I’m trying to be a realist with this one. In comparison with the Archibald — a purpose-built retail building that could be converted into basically anything
and isn't — the Paramount is a purpose-built cinema which can't be converted into much more than some kind of venue, where its chances are thin. With that in mind, to me, the only viable future the Paramount has is being grafted onto something else. And that’s a damn shame, I fully agree.
/https%3A%2F%2Ftf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiler_public%2Fd9%2F85%2Fd9851b14-1366-483d-b4d0-d4e3898306ae%2Fmovie_theaters_cover.jpg)
