City officials are furious that our city’s oldest movie theatre had to be demolished because it was past the point of fixing.
The empty Gem Theatre located at 9680 Jasper Avenue was a protected municipal historic structure, but inspectors recently concluded it was a hazard and ordered it to be torn down, according to Walter Trocenko, the branch manager of housing and projects.
The problems included interior mold and holes throughout the roof.
The Gem built in 1913 and operated as a movie theatre for the next 50 years, then was used as a Chinese movie house, a club and a restaurant before the building was vacated in 1996. The city sold the building to realtor Oliver O’Connor in 2000, who agreed to historic designation giving the city the authority to ensure it was conserved and maintained, according to council reports.
The deal was made with the hopes of saving the historic building, but this wasn’t what played out when the building was demolished last weekend.
Councilor Ben Henderson tried to set up an emergency debate about the building at last week’s council meeting, but was unsuccessful.
"It makes me angry. It makes all of us angry, what’s really upsetting about this is we owned the damn building and we sold it to this guy in the understanding that he would fix it up," Henderson said.
"We tried to buy it back. We tried to do something, but he wasn’t interested."
The city has filed a lawsuit in the matter.
With files from The Edmonton Journal
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