Investors purchase shuttered movie theater, eye revamp
SAN JOSE >> Bay Area investors have bought a San Jose movie theater property with an eye on revamping that would bring in new uses at the site.
The new owners of the theater site are contemplating a renovation and redevelopment of the property’s interior, although firm plans aren’t in place yet.
“We think this is a very good location,” said Azad Seyidov, a Bay Area business executive who heads the entity that bought the Towne 3 Cinemas property at 1433 The Alameda.
Baku AS, an affiliate headed by Seyidov, bought the property for $2.3 million, according to documents filed with Santa Clara County officials on March 11.
The property has a narrow frontage on The Alameda, where the theater entrance is located. The parcel widens out toward the back of the site and has a frontage on Hester Street.
The movie theater building totals 9,800 square feet and occupies a parcel of 10,500 square feet, county documents show.
“We are going to remodel it a little bit,” Seyidov said.
The purchasing group also obtained a construction loan totaling $1.9 million from Enterprise Bank & Trust at the time of the acquisition. The seller also provided the buyer with a loan of $200,000, the county documents show.
The Towne 3 Cinemas are currently closed, according
to the movie house’s website.
When it was open, Towne 3’s film offerings included Indian movies, Tamil movies from southern India and Bollywood movies from India’s Mumbai district, the website said.
The Alameda area has drawn investors to wellknown sites lately. Just a few blocks away, at 1010 The Alameda, the site of Watergarden, a long-time gay bathhouse that the coronavirus forced out of business, was bought by a local real estate developer, documents filed on March 4 show.
The new owner, Briggs Development, paid $4 million for the Watergarden property and intends to redevelop the bathhouse site as an office property.
As for the movie theater property, the new owners of the Towne 3 Cinemas site are considering their options.
“It might be an office development. At least part of it might be office space,” Seyidov said. “We don’t have a specific plan yet.”