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. 

Closing public comment, other moves: Lack of good faith by Pleasant Hill officials in deciding fate of iconic Dome theater?

As Pleasant Hill planning commissioners decide the fate of the CineArts Dome movie theater Tuesday night, they won’t be taking public comment about destroying the theater and replacing it with a big- box-looking chain sporting goods store, adding to the perception that this was long ago a “done deal" as City Council Jack Weir so famously told the Contra Costa Times.

This matter of closing public comment, whether allowed under California open meeting laws, shows an unwillingness to truly take in community concerns about the proposed destruction of a building that, a city report itself documents, is filled with historical and cultural meaning for their city and the rest of the area. The venue is also the only theater this side of the Caldecott Tunnel showing independent, art-house films. 

Commissioners also have not apparently considered that they have the legal option to declare the nearly half-century old movie theater a “historical resource,” an option described in a report by architectural experts the city itself commissioned to consider the theater’s historical significance. This reports points out that the building may not rise to the level of "exceptional importance" under certain criteria, but it does “exhibit a level of local importance within Pleasant Hill” and noted the city does have the ability, under state law, to declare the building a historical resource -- if it so chooses. 

“It’s heartbreaking to lose something like this,” acknowledged commissioner Diana Vavrek at last week’s Planning Commission meeting. “It really does mean something to people in the community.”

But Vavrek brought up a gripe I’ve heard before from the city and from SyWest Development, the company that wants to demolish the theater and replace it with a 73,000-square-foot Dick’s sporting goods store. The gripe is that they have been laboring over the question of how to develop the Contra Costa Shopping Center off Interstate 680 for more than a decade. They wonder, why haven’t people who care about the Dome raised a ruckus before? 

That’s because it was only in December – four months ago -- that SyWest Development revealed its plans to demolish the Dome complex and replace it with Dick’s -- which is more than twice the size of the Dome complex. As soon as that news became publicized, fans launched two Facebook pages and an online petition, gathering more than 2,200 signatures, to rally in support of preserving the unique building theater -- which also has an annex with four smaller theaters.  (In a previous post, I looked at an analysis of the Dome's rich history, prepared by the city's consultant. The analysis offers a great deal of background about Pleasant Hill, Central Contra Costa, the growth of the East Bay movie theater industry and the Dome's place in all that.) 

All this time, the theater’s future has pretty much been alluded to in an undefined way in city documents, notably in the city’s Contra Costa Center Specific Plan. The plan, approved by the city in 2006 and amended in 2012, is not a development plan for any specific project. It’s essentially just an outline of what can be developed in the area where the Dome is located. It discusses maximum square footage, building heights, parking and other important issues but doesn’t necessarily say that the Dome would definitely be eliminated from those plans.

Senior planner Troy Fujimoto said the plan doesn’t mandate preservation of the Dome building, but it does encourage developing a movie theater in the area. A draft of the 2006 specific plan available on the city’s website in fact states that the theater could be efficiently reconfigured to provide for efficient expansion and reuse of the space and that the existing buildings can only be replaced – “when warranted.”

So, is the demolition of the Dome “warranted?” For the arrival of Dick’s? 

To their credit, commissioners at last week’s expressed regret – in some cases deep regret -- about the loss of the Dome. Different commissioners talked about going to movies at the Dome, being fans of art-house, independent films and reading all the various emails and comments that came with petition signatures.

Meanwhile, I did not hear from them lots of enthusiasm about the Dick’s plan, although one commissioner, Alex Greenwood, said he’d vote to support it. At the same time, Greenwood also agreed with Dome supporters and film lovers who proclaimed that the Dick’s plan is “generic.” He wondered if there was some way the plan could be “more unique … more culturally woven into the fabric of Pleasant Hill.”

If commissioners are earnest in their expressions of regret, why are they so eager to rush this project along? Are they really eager to see SyWest demolish the Dome this summer and start building Dick’s? I know SyWest owns the property and should have the freedom to build what they want -- as long as it benefits the community. 

Commissioners made what felt like an effort to appease the crowd—who by and large raised concerns about perceptions about the lack of public input in this current “done deal” project—by asking SyWest president Bill Viera to come back this Tuesday night with some projections on incorporating a small theater into the project. 

Does anyone expect Viera to come back in such a short time with any response other than something rushed and obligatory, to say he tried, he really tried, to make it work but, no, he couldn’t, and the only plan that will work is essentially the one his company has just submitted?

So far, SyWest's solution to respecting the Dome's place in Pleasant Hill's history is to include a mural of the movie theater and mimic its shape in arches spanning a breezeway next to Dick's. That plan was pretty laughable to Dome supporters, in a sad, sick way. 

Vierra explained during a break in the meeting that the CineArts movie theater isn’t making a profit. SyWest, by the way, just owns the building. It doesn't operate the theater -- the operator is Cinemark -- though SyWest is the development arm of Syufy, the company that originally built the Dome in 1967. 

(But, the theater seemed to be doing a pretty good business on a Tuesday afternoon in January, when I went to see a matinee -- and took the above photo -- and the parking lot was fairly crowded, and there were a good number of people in the theater I was in.)

Vierra also noted a review by a consultant SyWest hired to offer another opinion of the building’s historic value. This report interprets the language of the city's architectural experts in a way that, not surprisingly, is favorable to SkyWest's interests. Among other things, it says that retrofitting the building to meet current code requirements for fire and other safety concerns would not be financially feasible.

Not financially feasible in what way? The report isn't very specific about that. 

Not financially feasible compared to tearing down a building that, in four years, could meet the eligibility requirements for listing as a California Historical Resource?

And that, in the hands of a more creative, less “generic”-thinking developer would continue to make Pleasant Hill a draw and put the city on the map culturally (as opposed to a town that one Dome supporter said “you just pass through on the way to someplace else.") 

And that, in the long term, could contribute to the long-term cultural and economic vitality of the city and the region?

Yes, arts and culture do very much contribute to a community’s economic sustainability, as my hometown of Walnut Creek has found over the years. According to the national Arts and Prosperity IV study, non-profit ventures in Walnut Creek generate $32.5 million annually, create 865 jobs and deliver nearly $3 million in local and state revenues.

Also, the city architectural consultant says the building retains “a good deal of physical integrity and could potentially be eligible for listing in a local register of historic places.” The main reason the 46-year-old building is not yet listed as a California Historical Resourcesis is that it’s only four years shy of the 50-plus year eligibility, the report says. 

As this report notes, according to guidelines of the California Environmental Quality Act, the city is not precluded “from determining that the building may be a historical resource.”

So, what's stopping the city from doing so? Or at least opening up a better dialogue with the community about the future of the Dome, now that a development plan for that site's future is finally on the table? 

UPDATE: Fans of the Dome and independent movies will hold a peaceful protest outside Pleasant Hill City Hall at 6:30 p.m. in advance of the 7:30 p.m. Planning Commission meeting. For more information, check out the Save Independent Film and the CineArts Dome in Pleasant Hill Facebook page. 

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. 

The Big, Boxy Store Hoping to Replace the Dome Movie Theater

Yesterday, I published a story on the new news website, News24-680, about efforts ramping up to save the beloved movie theater in Pleasant Hill.  There are two new Facebook pages and an online Change.org petition drive going on. More details are at News-240-680.

With the story, I also published images of the design for the new Dick's Sporting Good store that is proposed to replace the 1960s-era movie theater.

SyWest Development, the owner of the CineArts complex, wants to demolish the geodesic-shaped dome and put in a 73,176-square-foot housing the chain retailer.

Above and below are renderings of the new building's design submitted to the City of Pleasant Hill. The city's Architectural Review Commission will review the design in a study session at its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, Feb. 7 at 5 p.m.

In addition to the new two-story sporting goods store, the proposal involved refurbishing the building that formerly housed a Bally's Fitness Center. The meeting will take place in the large community room, 100 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill.