SAN JOSE — A San Jose housing development is poised to flatten nearly all of a long-shuttered movie palace, a disclosure that has dismayed local activists who seek to preserve historic buildings.
The residential project would replace the historic Burbank Theater at 552-560 South Bascom Ave. on a site just north of Interstate 280.
A previous version of the proposal left open the possibility that the housing development would somehow accommodate the entire front section of the movie house, along with the familiar “Burbank Cinema” sign.
The latest version of the proposal appears to have modified the intent of the project’s developer, city planners say.
“The only part of the original building that would be retained is the theater sign,” Kora McNaughton, a San Jose city planner, said in an email she sent to this news organization, citing information provided by a representative of the project applicant.
The latest version of the housing development dismayed members of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose, a historic preservation advocacy group.
“The concept of retaining the distinctive parts of the building, the lobby,the marquee, really that whole corner at the entrance, was kind of the minimum for what we were looking for,” said Mike Sodergren, president of the preservationist group.
Instead, the development group is focused primarily on a version that features residences with the vertical theater sign attached to the front of the property at the corner of South Bascom Avenue and Basile Avenue.
The vast majority of the existing Burbank Theater would be bulldozed.
“We definitely didn’t want this,” Sodergren said.
The project would feature 62 residences consisting of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, the city plans show.
A Milpitas-based group called Tru Investments that’s linked to South Bay business executives owns the theater, Santa Clara County property records show. In 2022, Tru Investments paid $1.6 million to buy the movie theater site.
This news organization has attempted to reach principal executives with the property ownership group through phone communications. The efforts have been unsuccessful so far.