Following an inspection of the Glebe Valhalla Cinema with the owners and architect the National Trust has argued against the proposal redevelopment in a submission to Sydney City Council.

 

While the proposed creation of 38 commercial office suites may be reversible from a strictly architectural perspective, the subdividing of the main auditorium and strata-titling of the office suites would ensure that this theatre could never again operate as a cinema.

 

Sydney City Council is currently exhibiting for public comment a proposed $12 million upgrade of Glebe Point Road’s commercial strip with footpath widening, closed-circuit television and undergrounding of overhead cables to revitalize the area. It is believed that the area has suffered from competition with Leichhardt’s Norton Street with its restaurants and cinema attractions.

 

It is ironic that as major funding is committed in attempts to revitalize Glebe Point Road, its cinema is proposed for conversion to offices.

 

Not only Norton Street but Randwick’s St Pauls Street/Avoca Street intersection is yet another example of a once depressed area that now has become a booming café/restaurant nightspot in synergy with the expanded six cinema historic Randwick Ritz Cinema.

 

This is possible in Glebe, with the building adjoining the Valhalla presently for sale allowing the possibility of creating additional cinemas linked to the Valhalla’s present two cinemas.

 

The Trust agrees with local community representatives that the revitalization plan needed to be “a bit more visionary.”

 

Approval for the office redevelopment of the Valhalla would be shortsighted and severely impair any real opportunity for major revitalization of the Glebe Point Road commercial area.

 

National Trust Submission to Sydney City Council

 

The National Trust objects to the development proposal (DA Number D/2006/1384) to create 38 commercial office suites and to subdivide and strata title these office suites within the auditorium of the Glebe Valhalla Cinema.

 

The Trust Classified and entered the Glebe Valhalla Cinema on its Register in August, 2005 for the following reasons: -

 

 

On 14th September, representatives of the Trust inspected the cinema and discussed the development proposal with Mr Michael Williams of W Property. The meeting was also attended by Mr Chris Kiely (the Valhalla Cinema’s owner and operator since 1989) and Ms Megan Jones representing Howard Tanner Architects.

 

The Trust has also been in contact with historic cinema owner/operators across New South Wales over the past twenty years working with them to lobby for fairer hire terms from the film distribution companies, arranging joint promotions and providing advice on restoration, grant funding and commenting on developments such as the incorporation of additional cinemas.

 

For the past fifty years, whenever a development has been proposed requiring the demolition or re-modelling of a cinema, it has always been argued that it is not feasible to continue the cinema operation.

 

This was the case with the Cremorne Orpheum when it was argued in State Parliament in the 1970s that the theatre “was a millstone around the owner’s neck.”

 

In the case of the Valhalla itself, the theatre was put up for auction in 1998 after “being forced to close its doors to film because of severe competition from new theatre complexes in the Inner West” (Glebe & Inner Western Weekly).

 

In the Sydney Morning Herald of 6th November 1998 Mr Chris Kiely was quoted –

 

“Last financial year was our most profitable ever, “ Mr Kiely said, “But from July, I didn’t get a single film  - not one – from the people who regularly supplied me. Not one. So that’s when the writing is on the wall. For the last four or five months it’s been like trying to run a shop with no goods in it.”

 

Despite this, the theatre remained in Mr Kiely’s ownership and he continued to operate it for the next six and a half years.

 

This history of not only the Valhalla but many other historic cinemas is that the business is fickle, cyclical and does depend on an operator willing to persist and be innovative.

 

Chris Kiely had earlier leased the Valhalla with Barry Peak since 1979 until he purchased the cinema in 1989. Chris Kiely’s twenty six year involvement with this theatre saved it from almost certain demolition and contributed in a major way to “creating an icon that helped to establish the culture of Glebe” (the words of  Leichhardt Councillor Cruden in 1998).

 

The Trust accepts that an entrepreneur has not come forward in the past six months to purchase and take on the running of the cinema. But 2005 was a downward cycle contributed to by the take up of DVD, home theatre and a lack of good film product similar to the period when television was launched in 1956.

 

In the July 22, 2006 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, Greater Union’s General Manager for film Mr Peter Cody noted “improved box office after last year’s downturn.”

 

Two days earlier in the same newspaper Mr Cody had estimated that “24 percent of cinema takings go to the baby boomer-and-older demographic and this percentage is increasing annually as the population matures.”

 

Given this cinema’s prime location on Glebe Point Road with a multitude of adjoining and varied restaurants, (one restaurant – The Craven - was operating successfully in the same building) and its siting in the inner city, it is difficult to accept that it has no future as a cinema and would make a better contribution to the local community providing office space.

 

At the time when W Property acquired the Valhalla at a trough in the cinema going cycle the Trust did consider the feasibility of a reversible redevelopment that would not sterilise the building from future use as a cinema.

 

However, the Development Application for subdivision and strata titling of the interiors and an inspection of the building confirmed, in the Trust’s view, that any real opportunity for re-establishing a cinema in the building would be neither possible nor practical (even if the building adaptation allowed this to happen).

 

That is not to say that W Property haven’t made great efforts to retain and restore the building façade, foyer and shops and we appreciate the heartfelt desire for a good outcome by the developer. However, so much of this building’s social and cultural significance would be lost, after 67 years of operation, if it were to be converted to offices.

 

The Trust believes that the very few remaining operating historic cinemas in suburban Sydney should be protected and their operators supported or community-based schemes should be investigated to keep them in operation.

 

It is ironic that many small country towns with small populations have retained their historic cinemas but in suburban Sydney, with its huge and ever growing population, development pressures have been largely allowed to sweep them away.

 

Sensitive adaptive re-use should be a process of last resort used most commonly with industrial buildings where the industry has ceased or re-located to other suburbs or regions.

 

The combination of cinema (including the latest digital projection technology) and live presentations that characterised the Glebe Valhalla is most certainly not such a defunct industry and the conversion of a building of such social significance to offices is strongly opposed by the National Trust.