WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday will receive an update of ongoing talks between the city and Fox Theater owner Hank Garcia for the possible purchase or lease of the historic cinema in downtown.
The item is included in the City Council’s closed session agenda of the upcoming meeting.
It is unclear what the city’s plans are for the theater on the corner of Main Street and Maple Avenue, and whether the City Council at the meeting will have the opportunity to strike a deal with the Garcia family, which also owns the Green Valley Cinema.
Watsonville City Manager Matt Huffaker said he could not go into specifics about the item, but he did say that discussions between the city and the Garcia family around the vacant triplex have been ongoing for “a few years.”
“I can share that both the City and the Garcia family share the goal of wanting to see the Fox reactivated,” he said through a text message.
Watsonville Mayor Jimmy Dutra said he was unsure of what exactly the City Council would be discussing on Tuesday, but he did say that discussions between the city and the Garcia family have been ongoing in various forms since his first stint on the council from 2014-18.
“You need both people on the same page (to make a deal), and it seems like that time has finally come,” he said.
The theater’s storied history dates back to 1923, when the California Theatre was built in the place of an old saloon. It was there that people came to see “high class” vaudeville shows, according to Pajaronian archives.
The Fox Theatres reopened in 1931 after an extensive remodel. At that time, a Pajaronian columnist described it as “one of the finest theaters on the Pacific coast.”
The owner converted the theater’s lobby into a restaurant after the building was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The Fox plugged gamely along through the years, before closing in 2005 because of low ticket sales.
It reopened for a short time in 2008, but it has since sat vacant for more than a decade.
The building’s Main Street-facing entrance is currently occupied by Slice Project pizza shop, which opened in late 2019.
Co-owner Brando Sencion said that while he’s worried about what the possible sale of the property could mean for his business, the news also filled him with excitement about what a thriving Fox Theater could mean for downtown.
“I don’t know what they’re thinking of doing, whether it’s going to reopen as a theater or a performance center or something else, but I hope they bring that building back to life,” he said. “It would be huge in setting a culture and a community in the downtown…. bringing more people to the area.”
Dutra said he envisions that area of downtown as a possible arts district if the theater is indeed revitalized. The building is flanked by the historic Porter Building, a vacant, city-owned property that is currently up for sale. The city was until recently working toward a deal with the Pajaro Valley Arts Council for that building before a land use law halted those discussions.
But a full renovation of the building, let alone purchasing it, would most likely be a pricey endeavor for the city, Dutra said. It took tens of thousands of dollars in donated materials and labor for the Watsonville Film Festival to perform the renovations needed to host its annual event at the theater in 2016, and most of those updates were cosmetic.
Still, Dutra said the benefits of having the theater in operation would be enormous, especially since the city is currently in the process of rekindling the interest in the corridor.
“I’ve always thought that the Fox has been one of the pillars of our community—the building’s awesome,” he said. “I remember going there as a kid….it’d be great to have future generations experience some joy out of that building. Whether or not it’s financially feasible, that’s something that still needs to be worked out.”
