Tilting at Windmills, Reaching for the Star in Saving the Dome

Today I meet with some crazy suburbanites like myself who are fervent in their desire to Save the Dome.  I offered to write an appeal of the Planning Commission’s decision – a document that needs to be ready by late next week. I’ve never written this kind of document before, and feel like I the lack basic background to do so. I'll do a pathetic job. Being a lawyer might help. Or an urban planner.  I’m just a journalist who has done some reporting on city government issues and seen development projects go through the process, so I have only rudimentary knowledge of how all this works.

I feel pretty rag tag and out of my element.  I don’t have a lot of time to spend on something like this. I have other projects due – the kinds that help me and my family pay the bills. I don't have the deep pockets and staff of SyWest, the developer that wants to destroy the Dome and replace it with a 73,000-square-foot DICK's sporting goods store. 

 

But I tell my husband I have to do this. I realize that the destruction of Dome CineArts movie theater may be a “done deal,” as City Council member Jack Weir so famously said. City planners, city staff and SyWest say they have been at this project for years and years, and SyWest, which owns the Dome property and first built the theater in 1967, likes to say it has struggled mightily to figure out how to develop that southern end of the long neglected shopping center – struggled with certain legal limits on the space and with restrictions having to do with tenants and the other owners of the properties of the shopping center.

So, I realize the Dome’s demise is probably inevitable, but I have to do what little I can to fight that threat.  And stand up with all the other people in Pleasant Hill and surrounding communities who agree that this is just a wrong, cynical, sinister, short-sighted and culturally backwards thing to do. 

The other Dome lovers are similiarly rag tag.  You could see them by the dozens at the protest outside Pleasant Hill city hall before Tuesday night’s Planning Commission meeting. They include long=time Pleasant Hill residents who have been taking themselves, their children and grandchildren to see movies at the Dome for nearly half a century.  They include men and woman who appreciate that the Dome is not just a commercial enterprise but an arts venue showing one of the 21^st century most popular forms of art: film. They appreciate that the Dome is the only venue in the East Bay suburbs and on this side of the Caldecott Tunnell showing the kinds of films that are the alternative to the usual CGI, action, blow-em-up blockbuster.

These are the independent, art-house films that the movie industry actually recognizes as having its own demographic and strong following among educated, discerning, and financially influential consumers.

The other Dome fans may not have lots of financial influence just yet but they are in the demographic that movie makers and retailers (like DICK's) like to go after. They are in their early 20s and just started out in their lives. They are young hip, sophisticated, and highlight educated Pleasant Hill natives who grew up going to movies at the Dome CineArts. Some maybe had their first jobs in high school there, and have moved away from Pleasant Hill as they pursue their college education at UC San Francisco, San Francisco State and other colleges. Giorgio Sassine, who started the Change.org petition, signed by more than 2200 people, is a Pleasant Hill native who is studying law at UC San Diego. 

By the way, SyWest, in the kind of opposition research usually reserved for the nasty underbelly of presidential political campaigns,  submitted a report to Pleasant Hill’s Planning Commission claiming that Sassine is “not even a resident of Northern California.”  I showed that report to his father, who attended the Planning Commission meetings. “That’s bullshit,” he said. “Geirgio’s addres is Pleasant Hill.

A group of  college students at the protest were on spring break, but were taking their time off to go see movies at the Dome, like the critically acclaimed indie hit Spring Breakrrs. And then they took the time to join the protest.  Students from Diablo Valley College were also in attendance, including a young woman reporting on the Dome’s proposed demise for DVC’s Inquirer student newspaper. As much as she was trying to do an objective report on the Planning Commission meeting, she expressed surprise and shock that anyone would want to destroy the Dome.  She echoed the sentiments of many in the crowd of protesters, “The Dome is Pleasant Hill." She added it’s a popular movie-going destination for DVC students.

Yes, it’s the most distinctive building in town and it does carry an almost indescribable amount of meaning to thousands of people across the region.  

Some say it is an eyesore. Well, SyWest Development hasn’t exactly done much with keeping the Dome looking as fresh and new as it good be. 

The Dome has its own amazing, unique beauty, much more than the generic, big box looking DICK's sporting goods store that would replace it. 

I’m sorry, DICK’s may have 500 stores across the country but here, its effort to replace a beloved cultural icon is nothing short of dickish, and all that this phallic imagery implies.  DICK's has those big green signs with big white letters announcing “DICK’S.  It became clear in Tuesday’s planning commission meeting that the phallic imagery of the word DICK’s so highly visible on the sign was very much on the minds of planning commissioners as they tried oh--so hard to phrase their use of the word DICK's carefully in their discussion of sign size so that it wouldn't hang in their air in some sort of embarrassing, giggle-producing double entendre.

DICK’s.

Meanwhile, you have the Dome, which has its own retro aesthetic. The Dome is indeed the coolest place in town and one of the coolest places along the Interstate 680 corridor. It’s Man Men chic. It's go-go boots and flower power and Laugh-In and the Summer of Love. It's the Apollo moon landings. It is totally Space Age and it holds everything of US aspirations of that post-war era  to create a better world. 

The Dome with its beautiful white roof – which, yes, could use a good power washing.

I am utterly disheartened that a city wouldn’t do more to try to save this building, when it is only four years shy of being eligible for listing as a California Historical Resources. I am also dismayed by the city’s willingness to rush through this project when it finally became public in December, and despite the thoughtful misgivings of one commissioner, Jim Bonnato, who voted against SyWest proposal: 

“I think this particular project meets the letter of the law but it doesn’t give Pleasant Hill the quality of a shopping center it should have," he said. 

"The Dome has been imploded,” he declared. “Meanwhile, the Dome’s replacement involves a Dicks’ sporting goods store brightly displaying its four “Dick’s” signs."  

"I think we have deserve a lot better," Bonnato continued. “I’d love to see the developer go back the drawing board and get more creative and give Pleasant Hill an updated center. I don’t think this is updated. We should see something better."

If only Bonnato's fellow commissioners had that much discernment. Thank you Bonnato for having the courage to speak up. 

I am disgusted by SyWest, despite President Bill Viera’s expressions of sympathy and the crocodile-tear-like emotion he displayed when talking about how SyWest’s parent company, Syufy built the Dome, and the Syuyfy family has a lot of attachment to it. 

I am embarrassed for the leaders who Pleasant Hill, who fail to appreciate an icon in their midst, who are willing to sacrifice it for yet another sporting goods store that may or may not succeed in that space and that may or may not bring those sales tax revenues the city is so eager to accumulate.  They see DICK’s as some kind of golden ticket to a more attractive, profitable shopping center.  I see it as yet another strip mall coming to Pleasant Hill--a  city  that has long struggled, next to its more defined neighbors, to create a brand, an identity.

Pleasant Hill has long been looking for its There. Well, it has its There in the Dome, and now it wants to destroy its There for a DICK’s.

Without the Dome and the cultural delights it offers inside, Pleasant Hill--as one of those rag tag Dome supporters said--becomes just a town you pass through on the freeway.

The other rag taggers, who are even more new than me to the labyrinthine, legal process of city planning, are full of passion for the Dome, and full of wonderful ideas for making it an even more lively, exciting venue that would put Pleasant Hill on the map. But the word is that they are much too late. The big giant bulldozer destruction lurks just beyond city limits.

Too bad I and the other rag-taggers didn’t dutifully follow the City of Pleasant hill website all these years—as any reasonable person would if they didn’t have a million other things going on their lives—to find out when the next commission hearing would be on such usually well-attended topics as set backs and parking demand, as they relate to Sub Area II – the area of the shopping center where the Dome is located.  Hey, maybe we’d be more up to speed with this project, even, though, according to city documents and senior planner Troy Fujimoto himself, the plan to destroy the Dome didn’t become public until December.

But by then, it was apparently all too late. City staff and SyWest no  doubt had been discussing the DICK’s plans for months outside of public purview, as cities and developers tend to talk amongst themselves. By the time the Dome's destruction proposal was finally on the table and supporters of the Dome started to gather signatures and develop their rag-tag movement  of students, film lovers and retirees dedicated to  its preservation – well, too bad about their efforts, from the perspectives of the city and its friends at SyWest—too bad that it was all too late.

But oh, we can always try. We can don our Man of La Mancha costumes and dream impossible dreams, and fight unbeatable foes. 

The cause may be hopeless, but sometimes life presents us with hopeless causes, and we get a choice. And we can choose, depending on where we are in our lives. We can choose to crumble and accept the less-than-ideal, the mediocre, the soulless, the mendacious, the agent of destruction that obliterates a place and idea that brings beauty to our world – because this agent of destruction met the guidelines set down in  a city’s specific plan. 

Or we can put up the last good fight. That is--to, um, quote "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha --we can give it one last shot  to right, the unrightable wrong and aim for the unreachable star.

For more information about this rag tag group, go to the Facebook Page Save Independent Film and the CineArts Dome in Pleasant Hill. 

Done Deal? But Pleasant Hill's own reports detail the Dome's landmark, historical place in this town and county

Pleasant Hill city officials tell me and the Contra Costa Times they have no control over a development company's desire to demolish the landmark CineArts Dome movie theater--the city's first movie theater-- and replace it with an architecturally indistinctive chain sporting goods store. 

"There isn't anything we can do about the Dome being planned for demolition," Pleasant Hill City Councilman Jack Weir told the Contra Costa Times. 

"Since the site is privately owned and controlled, preservation of the theater would largely fall on the property owner," adds Troy Fujimoto, senior planner with the city.

Discussions about the fate of the Dome and its replacement--a 73,000-square-foot Dick's Sporting Goods--in the Crossroads Shopping Center along Interstate 680 will come before Pleasant Hill's Planning Commission Tuesday evening. 

City officials have begun to ring the Dome's death knell even as a city report, released as an addendum in advance of Tuesday's meeting, calls the Dome Theater "one of the decreasing number of buildings that represents the period of development that established Pleasant Hill as a city." 

The report, based on an expert analysis provided by architectural experts by the city, goes on to say: 

The Dome Theater is associated with an important period of development in Pleasant Hill’s history, and is one of a diminishing number of buildings that serve as visible reminders of that period. With few alterations, the functioning CineArts Theater is also the best remaining example of the distinctive domed movie theater building type in the East Bay. 

Sywest Development, the development arm of Syufy, the company that originally built the Dome in 1967, has been looking to redevelop the southern half of the shopping center for years. 

The city is essentially throwing up its hands at the likelihood of the Dome being demolished. But lately, the city has shown cognizance of deep-rooted concerns among central Contra Costa residents and film lovers who worry about the loss of the Dome, the only theater showing independent art-house fare this side of the Caldecott Tunnel. 

Weir told the Times that an unidentified group is exploring the possibility of screening art-house films at some venue somewhere else in the city. Nice thought, Mr. Weir, but part of the reason people are so impassioned about this issue is because they don't want to lose the pleasure of also seeing their movies at the Dome. 

It should be noted that at one one point in its planning history, the city understood the desirability of keeping a movie theater in the shopping center.

In 2006, the city approved a "Contra Costa Center Specific Plan" to guide development of the shopping center.  The plan encouraged the development of a movie theater in that area, Fujimoto says. But Fujimoto also pointed out that the plan never mandated development of a movie theater nor preservation of the existing Dome theater. 

He also said the building was evaluated for potential historical significance. At that time, in 2006, he says, it "was determined not to be a potentially significant resource." 

This determination of not being a significant resource may come as a surprise to the more than 800 people who have "liked" the Save Independent Film and the CineArts Dome in Pleasant Hill Facebook page. And the 2100 people, many from Pleasant Hill, who have signed the Change.org petition, asking for SyWest Development to consider preserving the Dome.  Then there are the folks who regularly go onto the  I Saw it At the Dome Facebook page to share their fond memories of films and important, life-changing personal moments that took place while seeing movies there.

The Dome obviously has a lot of meaning to a lot of people in the area, and many consider it to be the most distinctive building in Pleasant Hill, if not in one of the most notable buildings in central Contra Costa County. 

Actually, one way the Dome could have easily been saved if it were eligible for listing under the California Register of Historical Places. But, alas, it would need to be more than 50 years old. Damn, built in 1967, the Dome missed this "historical" marker by four years. 

In this city report, the city put effort into either trying to prove or deny the building's historical status under another set of legal criteria for the California Environmental Quality Act. Meeting this criteria would allow the city to declare the building to be "of exceptional importance." In the end, the report concludes that the Dome doesn't meet those criteria.

However, in language and content, the report undercuts its conclusions by presenting a great deal of history about Pleasant Hill, Central Contra Costa, the growth of the East Bay movie theater industry and the Dome's place in all of that. 

Reading it, I think, the city and SyWest Development could really muck things up and destroy a real treasure -- something of real distinction in a region that tends to lack such qualities -- if they tear this movie theater down. And, for what? A sporting goods store, one that looks like pretty much any sporting goods store in any strip mall around here.

But I digress. The history. The Dome. The Glory.

In the 1950s, Pleasant Hill was emerging as a small farming community, according to the report. Then came the large subdivisions, fueled by the post-World War II baby boom and America's expansion into suburbia. 

The year after Pleasant Hill was incorporated in 1961, Montgomery Ward's opened on Monument Boulevard just east of Interstate 680. It was the anchor of the new Contra Costa Shopping Center, built to serve the city's rapidly expanding residential population. 

Century Theaters opened its 895-seat Century 21 Theater in Pleasant Hill on February 21, 1967. The first filmed screened in that marvelous domed roof auditorium--built by fastening a concentric array of 20 individual arched steel struts to a center hub: David Lean's epic adaptation of Boris Pasternak's Russian Revolution novel Doctor Zhivago. 

The Dome's named changed from Century 21 to Century 5 when four theaters were added to the rear of the auditorium in 1974. (I think I went to see the Academy Award-winning Paul Newman-Robert Redford Depression-era caper movie, The Sting, in one of those smaller theaters.) In 2003, Century Theatres transferred the facility to its growing art theater franchise, CineArts.

Syufy erected several domed theatres in many western cities from the 1960s through the mid-1980s, and architect Vincent G. Raney designed all of the Syufy Century theaters through the early 1990s. 

Raymond Syufy is a rather interesting figure in the Bay Area movie scene, and in the history of the film distribution business. The city report says:

After working at local movie theaters, in 1940, at the age of 23, Syufy took charge of his own movie theater, the Rita in Vallejo. The theater business at this time was firmly in the grip of the major film producers who often kept the best first-run films away from independent operators. The U.S. Justice Department had been trying to force them to open their product to others. Independent theaters were also in the fight, forming trade associations and initiating lawsuits. Raymond Syufy, having attended law school, took up this cause starting in the late 1940s. A major battle for independent theaters was won in the Supreme Court in 1949. This legal settlement enabled independent theater operators like Syufy to improve their film offerings dramatically, and the company expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, opening additional theaters as well as many drive-ins, moving outward from California to Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

The report notes: "The company's buildings gained a reputation for interesting architecture, with a number of its indoor theaters featuring a domed 'igloo' design." 

Meanwhile, according to the city report, Rainey also designed, for Syufy, a new dome theater in suburban San Jose. San Jose's Century 21 Theatre opened in 1964, the mothership in a series of Rainey-designed dome theaters that would grace roadsides in the 1960s. Raney designed all of the Syufy Century theaters from 1964 through the early 1990s. 

The report also notes the significance of the architectural form of the dome that Rainey's designs embody: "Though Raney’s dome theaters were not designed using a geodesic dome, popularized in the 1950s by R. Buckminster Fuller, the dome in general was nevertheless a popular and “futuristic” architectural form in the 1960s and 1970s and came to be a familiar characteristic in the Syufy chain of suburban movie theaters.

The city report contends that the Dome theater off Interstate 680 did not play a significant role in the commercial development of Pleasant Hill. However, the report acknowledges that it does exhibit "a level of local importance within Pleasant Hill." Perhaps it was important to Pleasant Hill for non-commercial reasons -- for reasons of culture or community, for instance. 

That's because the 1960s was a period of rapid expansion for Pleasant Hill, and the Dome theater was one of many structures completed during that decade to serve the modern needs of the growing suburban community. 

According to the report, research indicates that the Dome theater was Pleasant Hill’s first movie theater, and also that it was the first domed theater along the Interstate 680 corridor. 

Weir tells the Times that SyWest has agreed to donate artifacts and memorabilia from the theater to the Pleasant Hill Historical Society. The developer also plans to put up a plaque or monument marking the site of the dome theater. 

I suppose that is supposed to be some consolation. 

So It's Finally the End for the Dome?

This is an annoying, disturbing recent development. The Dome movie theater, a landmark in Pleasant Hill and in the history of East Bay cinemas, is going to be torn down to make way for a sporting goods store.

A CBS producer was at the CineArts theater Saturday afternoon, where I went to see the beautiful Helen Hunt-John Hawkes film The Sessions. "Oh shit," I said. "It's terrible news."  However, I didn't say "shit" for the soundbite he asked me to give him for a possible broadcast on tonight's nightly news.

It's not as though the Dome hasn't been living under threat of destruction for years. SyWest Development wants to modernize the southern half of the Crossroads Shopping Center by tearing down the geodesic domed-roof theater and putting in a 73,176-square-foot Dick's Sporting Goods, the Contra Costa Times reports. 

Do we really need another sporting goods store? And, will central Contra Costa residents lose their local art-house cinema, which always looks to me like it's doing good business, packing in audiences.  Over the past 10 years, plans by SkyWest -- previously known as Syufy -- to replace the Dome with a sleek new art-house cinema never went anywhere, especially after the recession hit.

Well, Pleasant Hill Councilman David Durant told the Times that the loss of the movie theater and the chance to revitalize that part of the shopping center will be good for the community.  Really, David?  I understanding wanting to fix up that part of the shopping center. It has a certain smell of decay and sadness about it -- though not in the theater itself.

"It's always sad to lose something iconic like the dome, but the real challenge for a lot of people to understand is that there's no way to effectively to keep that theater operating," Durant said. "I think it's unfortunate, but to be candid about it, I think it's a sacrifice we need to make for the overall benefit of the community."

Back in 2009, I wrote that it would be great if the developer realized the retro '60s cool value of the Dome and sought to preserve that, while, of course, fixing and cleaning up the lobby and interiors--and adding whatever modern movie technological innovations are needed.

The Dome is listed on the Cinema Treasures website and represents a certain era of grand technological experimentation in the art of filmmaking. The Dome auditorium opened in 1966 with a giant curved screen used to show films—generally big, sweeping epics—shot in a process known as Cinerama. This widescreen process worked by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen. It was the first of a number of technological innovations introduced in the 1950s and 1960s to help Hollywood offer something to audiences that TV, the movie industry’s big competition, could not.

I’m pretty sure I saw my first movie at the Dome. It was The Sound of Music.  Going to see this movie was a reward for getting through a week of preschool without crying and clinging to my mother. My older siblings took me to see it. Over the years, I remember going to see Jaws, The Godfather II, Apocalypse Now, and The Shining at the Dome. It was the theater in central Contra Costa to see the big screen epics.

But either it's not economically feasible to preserve this community landmark or we have yet another developer in Contra Costa County -- and city leadership -- who lack imagination. Hence, we get another sporting goods franchise.