Grand Lake’s operator buys it
The Grand Lake Theatre movie palace in Oakland has been sold to its longtime leaseholder, with a commitment to continue showing films far into the future.
Allen Michaan, who was operating under a 95-year lease that would end in 2023, purchased the Grand Lake on Thursday for $3.75 million. He will seek to put it in the National Register of Historic Places to give it landmark status, and be even more aggressive with improvements, he said.
The theater, on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt, was built in 1926 for $900,000 by Louis Kaliski and Abraham C. Karski; for one month, it was the largest movie theater operating west of the Mississippi. Michaan’s Renaissance Rialto Inc. took over the lease in 1980 and has been running the theater since.
Michaan said the purchase comes at the end of the theater’s strongest box office year to date — boosted by a trio of films that were set in Oakland
— as well as premieres and special screenings at the Grand Lake.
“A lot of that I have to credit to our Oakland filmmaking community,” Michaan said. “‘Black Panther’ director Ryan Coogler has been a terrific supporter of the theater. … And then of course this summer’s releases ‘Sorry to Bother You’ and ‘Blindspotting,’ two Oakland films, have been phenomenally received by the community.”
Coogler, “Sorry to Bother You” director Boots Riley and “Blindspotting” co-stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal all paid tribute to the Grand Lake when their movies premiered.
“(My father) took me here to see ‘Boyz n the Hood’ when I was like 4 years old or 3 years old, or something crazy like that,” Coogler said, surprising a Grand Lake audience the night “Black Panther” opened. “I sat right here in this back row right there and cried like crazy at the end of the movie. Probably annoyed everybody.”
The theater faced closure in the 1970s, before Renaissance Rialto took over in 1980 and quickly revived it with a series of cosmetic improvements, restored lighting and investment in better equipment. The Grand Lake expanded from one to four screens later in the 1980s. The theater struggled to get crowds again in the early 2000s, but has rebounded in recent years.
“Last year was the highest-grossing year we ever had,” Michaan said. “We just passed (that number) on (Aug. 19) with 4½ months to go this year.”
The purchase involved negotiation with nine descendants of the Kaliski and Karski families. Ray W. Kaliski, grandson of Louis Kaliski, said his family is happy the Grand Lake will continue to show films, as it did as a silent movie house in the 1920s.
“That’s one of the reasons why we were most interested in selling to Allen,” Kaliski said. “I think my grandfather, who was a theater man, would be pleased. … Allen is the perfect choice to carry on the legacy of that building.”
Michaan at one point operated 19 theaters in the Bay Area. The Grand Lake is his last one, and he’s thrilled it can stay open for new generations of Oakland moviegoers.
“The Grand Lake is special,” Michaan said. “It’s one of the best theaters in the country.”