It's a building that's hard to miss in the vibrant Kaimukī neighborhood.
The long-shuttered Queen Theater has been the quietest building on Wai‘alae Avenue. Even with a recent paint job, the mustard yellow color is still prominent on the rusted neon marquee sign that once illuminated the business district.
Community members have wanted the so-called neighborhood eyesore to be returned to its former glory — when it used to show surf films and cartoons. Others want it to be taken over by another owner and have the venue transformed into a community hub for hālau to practice hula or artists to showcase their work.
Since Queen Theater was put on the market last month, it's caught the interest of Los Angeles-based Hoodihoo Productions, which curates pop-up movie screenings.
To the art group, it seemed like the perfect place to host film festivals and showcase documentaries and other independent films.
“The focus would be revitalizing the theater so it can be a working theater again and actually show films in Kaimukī,” said local actor Nicholas Gianforti to HPR.
The group is in the process of creating a new private investment business to try to purchase Queen Theater. But they say they’re waiting for the realtor from CBRE to get back to them.
HPR reached out to CBRE Senior Associate Matthew McKeever for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Gianforti said the group wants to keep the building as its iconic self but give it a facelift, and then have the theater host film festivals and screenings for ‘Ohina Labs, Hawai‘i Filmmakers Collective and others.
“There’s a lot of potential once you get the theater up and running,” he said.
Last month, the Honolulu City Council earmarked $4 million for the City administration to acquire the 90-year-old building. But City officials have made it clear since then that they are not interested in buying the theater. The funds need to be spent by June of next year before the money can no longer be used for that purpose and then can be spent on other City endeavors.
Some community members have suggested a nonprofit take over the theater, similar to Palace Theater in Hilo and Hawaii Theatre in Chinatown.
Last year, the City Council introduced a measure that would simplify the process of leasing city spaces.
City Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam has worked on legislation to make Downtown Honolulu and Chinatown more business-friendly.
“This is intended for nonprofits to come in, artists, art studios, galleries, but also commercial tenants,” he said in an interview with HPR. “If the City has a storefront space like the City would have if we acquired the Queen Theater, it’s supposed to simplify the process, make it a lot easier for that private party to negotiate directly with the City and cut out a lot of the paperwork and cut out a lot of the time.”
Bill 35 is still alive and has one more committee hearing. But the measure hasn’t moved since last May.
Mahlon Moore of Friends of Queen Theater said the theater has been sitting vacant for years. The nonprofit group was created to persuade the theater's reclusive owner to restore it to its former glory.
But Moore said the nonprofit doesn’t have the money to run Queen Theater in its current condition.
“We’re not in a position to actually run the theater,” Moore told HPR. “Several of our members don’t even live on O‘ahu anymore, and our organization is very, very small.”
That’s something Gregory Dunn understands. He’s the president and CEO of the nonprofit that runs the historic Hawaii Theatre in Chinatown. The Hawaii Theatre Center was formed in 1984 to save the Honolulu landmark from demolition.
Dunn said it’s a daunting task to not only acquire a theater building, but to renovate it and continue with its upkeep. He said it costs several million dollars annually to fix the theater.
“On top of the $3 million to $4 million in operating overhead expenses that our nonprofit has to try and either raise the money or secure funding through the shows that we present, or even charging ticketing fees, all of those revenues that we generate go to operate and maintain the historic venue.”
Another challenge for running a century-old theater is to keep up with rising property insurance.
“Following the Lahaina wildfires, the property insurance market in Hawai‘i went absolutely haywire, and our property insurance premiums increased by 4,500% in one year,” he said to HPR.
Dunn also questions what the “real cost is going to be” to renovate the building, noting that Queen Theater is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“When you talk about a renovation of a facility like that, and you're looking at the cost to do the asbestos abatement and dealing with lead and lead paint issues within the structure, there are going to be some really significant infrastructure costs that are going to be required to be put into the facility,” he said.
Dunn said it will be challenging for whatever group is willing to step up to the plate, but he said it’s doable when there are investors, donors and philanthropists that can help make that a reality.
During its peak period, Queen Theater operated as a neighborhood movie theater throughout World War II and into the 1950s and 1960s.
It screened cartoons, surf films and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
It was then purchased in 1978 by the reclusive Narciso Yu Jr., who had been reluctant to sell the property.
The theater had a quirky past of showing X-rated films and was frequently raided by police, who confiscated more than 500 pornographic films worth up to $100,000.
A raid in the 1980s led to the theater shutting its doors.
Local theater historian and co-founder of Friends of Queen Theater Lowell Angell said the theater then fell into disrepair and became a warehouse for a plumbing company.
“A lot of the seats were removed and stacked in the back of the theater,” he said.
Angell said the group has been “waiting patiently” for 15 years.
His dream is to see the theater restored.
“It would be something in the neighborhood that would be an attraction instead of an eyesore,” he said.
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