EDITORIAL:Sad but inevitable fate of Port Theater

Saving a historical landmark is always a dicey proposition. Often, the cost of repairing the structure far outweighs the potential economic gain.

Such is the case, it appears, of the Port Theater. In 2003, we and others in the community took heart that the Port Theater, a longtime Corona del Mar landmark, would be revived and refreshed.

Local resident Rick Aversano had bought the property and was promising to make it a thriving venue once again.

The city even helped in the cause by granting the theater a special landmark status, allowing the needed upgrades to take place.

Alas, that wasn’t to be.

Restoring old theaters is no easy task. Most were built in the heyday of film and thus are not safe by today’s modern earthquake standards. To complete the seismic retrofitting is almost always an enormous cost.

Just ask those who are trying to renovate the Balboa Theater on the peninsula or the Fox Theater up the road in Fullerton.

So like other theaters that have come and gone, the Port, an art-deco-style facility that became known as an art theater in the recent past, now has a date with the bulldozers.

That is unfortunate.

We just hope that if it is demolished, the owners of the property will do something to acknowledge the theater’s historic ties to the Corona del Mar community and lessen the pain of watching an old friend fade away.