By Michael Scoular (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 26, 2014
For a brief time in the 20th century, movie palaces were being built as quickly as exhibitors could manage and as lavishly as small cathedrals.
Films brought in everyone, outpacing theatre and radio, and it is into this pre-television, pre-internet world places like the Clova Cinema were brought into existence. Now, with fragmented audiences and an industry-sweeping digital changeover, theatres like these are being left behind. Some are being closed down, reconfigured, or, like the old Granville 7 in Vancouver, are waiting empty for a new owner to construct or destroy before it can fit some new use.
Most recently, a number of theatres have opened their doors as public gathering spaces, but under the conditions of worship: Vancouver’s Centre for the Performing Arts is now filled by Westside Church. Crosscurrent, a Christian service, meets at Silvercity Mission on Sunday mornings. And now Crossridge Church has purchased the Clova to use as its permanent home. It previously had the location on a rental basis for Sunday and holiday services.
The Clova already was contending with raising money for a digital projector, but Craig Burghardt, who runs the theatre, says the situation was more complicated than just a need for new equipment.
“I was pretty confident we were going to be able to reach our goal of getting a digital projector,” he says. “But there was no sense going ahead on that if we [didn’t] have a long-term lease.”
The building, which had been up for sale for four years, instead went to Crossridge, led by pastor Lee Francois. The church is allowing screenings to continue as long as film prints are still distributed by major studios, but don’t plan to continue co-existing with movie operations. Paramount Pictures has already ceased film production, and it’s expected the others will follow within the next year.
“We don’t see our mandate to be running a movie theatre,” Francois says. “The heart of our church is to be a blessing to the community, and we feel like there’s more than one way to do that. Showing movies isn’t the only way to bless the community.”
Some in the community oppose the change. Within hours of the news breaking, an online “Save the Clova” group started, and quickly gathered over 1,500 followers. However, what, if anything, the group can do is unclear.
“I’m very touched and I’m happy that there’s that much love out in the community … and I hope they can do something,” Burghardt says. “[But] I’m not sure what they can do — who you’re gonna speak to make this go away — the power’s out of my hands.”
Public opinion may most strongly side with the theatre, but Francois says that keeping the Clova showing movies as long as they are is the best scenario there is.
“I know there’s a little bit of ‘the church is shutting down the movie theatre’ … The goal wasn’t, ‘hey, let’s shut down the movie theatre,’ the goal was if we’re gonna buy this space and make this investment, we want to reconfigure the space to suit what we’re gonna do and we want access to it on more than just Sunday mornings,” he says. “The reality is … we got word from the owners there was another party interested in buying it, and so the way for us to secure a meeting space for our church was to buy the theatre.”
Commenting on the theatre’s Facebook page, management at the Clova stated one of the reasons for the change in ownership.
“[The church] was able to get permission from the city to purchase a commercial building because they promised to restore it and make it a heritage building, which it currently isn’t. The previous owner was opposed to heritage status.”
The Clova is listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places, but is not protected as a National Historic Site like the Orpheum and the Vogue from Vancouver’s now-defunct Theatre Row.
Downtown Cloverdale has begun a period of change over the past couple years, and Francois sees this as part of that revitalization project. Changing the theatre from its original use but preserving its architecture may not be enough for some people to see the church as the same centre of community the theatre filled, but Francois says events like graduation ceremonies will continue to be held there in the future.
Burghardt sees this as an unnecessary loss, maintaining that “they’re closing us down.”
But at this point, the only thing left to do might be to prepare for the end of film projection, low ticket prices, and bring-your-own-bowl popcorn discounts.
“We’re kicking around a few ideas,” he says. “We’re going to do several events for the public to say goodbye.”
