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Old Posted Jun 5, 2007, 11:01 PM
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Crest renovation in the works
By Mark Anderson of the Sacramento Business Journal
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sa...l?surround=lfn

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

An investment group is in escrow to buy the Crest Theatre on K Street with plans to add more performing arts acts.

The Crest, last renovated a dozen years ago, is one of the businesses that has remained vibrant on the largely moribund K Street Mall.

Jim Brennan, president of Trancas Ventures of St. Helena, said he sees the Crest being a small version of New York City's Lincoln Center.

Brennan would not comment nor return calls. He has had discussions with Crest management, who say they have had only initial meetings.

"He (Brennan) is pretty excited about the things that we do here and with the direction downtown is taking," said Sid Garcia-Heberger, general manager of the Crest.

Across the street from the Crest, local developer David S. Taylor Interests Inc. is developing a cabaret-style performing arts venue on the ground floor of a building that would have other retail, some office space and residential units.

That space has been shuttered since the Woolworth's store there closed 12 years ago.

The Crest runs art house and foreign movies, as well as hosting about 10 film festivals a year. It's main stage has been used as a concert venue for years, with bands such as Taj Mahal to Nirvana gracing the floorboards.

In its current configuration, the Crest has a proscenium stage which can accommodate a fairly large band, but it has no wings, back-stage or fly loft rafters for live performances.

The theater is owned by a group of trusts from a longtime Sacramento family, and operated by separate company.

The Crest got a remodel in 1995, which added two smaller theaters downstairs to the single 975-seat auditorium on the ground floor. There has been a theater in that location since 1912. The original structure, called the Empress, was set up for live Vaudeville entertainment. It was gutted and completely remodeled into a large ornate movie palace starting in 1946. Opening night of the Crest was October 1949.
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