Show’s over? Laemmle NoHo 7 theater to become multifamily

For the past decade the Laemmle Noho 7, an independent-style movie theater on Lankershim Boulevard, has served as a commercial mainstay of North Hollywood’s increasingly buzzy Arts District.

Now it’s slated to become a seven-story apartment complex, a transformation that reflects both the pandemic-era struggles of theaters and the same neighborhood’s growing appeal to multifamily developers.

“We’re going to operate as long as we can,” said Greg Laemmle, the CEO of the family-run local chain. “We don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to have just a vacant property, but that’s going to be their decision.”

Grubb Properties, the North Carolina-based firm that’s behind the project, did not respond to a request for comment.

Grubb, a national player that’s also recently been pursuing multiple projects in New York, filed its redevelopment plans early this month, which appeared in planning department records on Friday.

The firm intends to demolish the property’s existing building and construct a seven-story mixed-use complex that has a total of 128 apartments. The complex would have 5,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space and around 70 car parking spaces.

The new complex, called NoHo Lankershim, would be nearly 130,00 square feet and include 13 units set aside for very low income tenants, in line with the city’s requirements for density bonuses under the Transit Oriented Communities program. The apartments would have amenities that include a courtyard, outdoor pool, fire pit and “bike cafe,” according to planning documents — the kind of modern, market-rate complex that seemingly fits right in with the Arts District’s ongoing residential upscaling, where studios and one bedrooms now rent for well north of $2,000.

The redevelopment plans come amid wider trouble for the movie theater business. After the pandemic shuttered and then seemingly permanently restructured moviegoing habits, national theater chains shuttered hundreds of screens, and the woes have continued through 2022. Last week Cineworld, which operates Regal Cinemas, the country’s second largest chain, filed for bankruptcy.

The pain has extended to the world’s movie capital. Last year L.A. film fans were left reeling by the announcement that Pacific Theatres and ArcLight cinemas would close permanently, a move that left the city’s beloved Cinerama Dome in jeopardy. The dome could soon reopen.

This summer the Landmark Pico also announced it was finished.

Laemmle, a local company that has been operating since 1938, was devastated by the pandemic, and turned to leveraging its real estate. The chain sold its Playhouse 7 property, in Pasadena, for $7.3 million to the developer GD Realty Group, as well as the Royal theater, in West L.A.. Both of those deals were leasebacks, which allowed the theaters to stay open.

The company sold the NoHo 7 to Grubb, in another leaseback deal, last May for $9.5 million, according to records. The property, located at 5240 Lankershim Boulevard, is two stories and nearly 33,000 square feet, with office space and a Chipotle along with the seven-screen theater, where the current roster includes “Honk for Jesus,” “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.”

The theater opened in 2011, and before the pandemic, enjoyed several very successful years, Laemmle said. It also played a role in the area’s redevelopment, which had kickstarted a decade earlier when the nearby North Hollywood metro station opened.

The closing of a theater is “never a happy moment,” Laemmle said. But the company will survive and even grow again, he added.

“We’ve been in business for three generations and 85 years,” said. “We will continue to find places and ways to show those movies. That’s what we do.”

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Los Angeles

Developer eyes apartment complex in North Hollywood