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The Metro Theatre, located at 677 Bloor Street West squarely in the middle of downtown Toronto's Little Korea, is a classic porn theatre, Toronto's last porn theatre. Decades after transitioning from a perfectly respectable children-suitable movie theatre to something seedier, subject of a breathless review in blogTO in 2009 and complaints from urban renewal folk about the blight in a generally prosperous neighbourhood, a 2011 Toronto Star article suggested that the Metro Theatre persisted because of the inertia of local real estate markets.
The Metro Theatre is being relaunched as Toronto's next art-house theatre. (With some adult films.)
Will this work? The quiet consensus, as reported by the CBC, seems to be that this is as good an approach as any.
The Metro persists not because of a loyal following of devoted connoisseurs or an eccentric philanthropist with a soft spot for vintage erotica, but because Hirji has priced the property out of the market in an attempt to recover his considerable losses.
The 5,450 square-foot space — with two classic 300-seat theatres — is listed for sale at $3.59 million, or $658 per square foot, which even the property’s broker admits is overpriced by almost half.
“The asking price is on the high side,” says Joseph Kang, of Keller Williams Real Estate Service. “$2 million would be a reasonable price.”
Steps away from Christie subway station at 677 Bloor St. W., The Metro will be “a prime development site,” says Steven Alikakos, senior vice-president of DTZ Barnicke, a commercial real estate brokerage. “[But] the costs of turning the space into something usable are just too much to make it work at $3.5 million.”
Building a residential development would require buying the adjacent corner grocery, Alikakos said, and even then the developer would only be able to build eight storeys. “You can’t make money on eight storeys at the price he’s trying to sell it.”
The Metro Theatre is being relaunched as Toronto's next art-house theatre. (With some adult films.)
"I hope this will become the independent art house cinema in the west of Toronto," said Jonathan Hlibka, who along with business partner Nadia Sandhu hopes to revitalize the 1930s-era theatre.
When Toronto's appetite for porn in public gave way to VCRs, the theatre began its long decline. Most of the posters of scantily clad bodies lining the entrance of the theatre are faded, the marquee is missing a few light bulbs and there are no film titles displayed.
The Metro, as it's known, has been on the real estate market for a decade, and is listed at $3.8 million.
Hlibka and Sandhu see potential there and plan to show indie, art house and foreign films four nights a week, while the theatre will continue to show adult films in the afternoon. The pair will also hold events and parties to bring the community together.
Hlibka had been in talks for about a year with the theatre's owner, Karim Hirji, who came from Tanzania in the 1970s and bought the cinema with his father.
The theatre will open to non-adult films around Aug. 24 with the Irish film Snap. The grand reopening will happen sometime in September.
Will this work? The quiet consensus, as reported by the CBC, seems to be that this is as good an approach as any.
Ryerson University professor Paul Moore, who has studied the history of movie theatres, thinks the idea might work. The Metro, he notes, was never a mainstream theatre but was instead independent at its opening in 1939, showing a "scandalous" B-movie called, Delinquent Parents: The Unforgettable Drama of Modern Youth and Selfish Parents.
Though he says it won't be a theatre that will appeal to families or children, it will fulfil a niche in Toronto by having foreign films downtown.
"It's going to be for hipster, university students and esthetes that are interested in global cinema and adults and downtown cosmopolitan types that are interested in cinema," he said. "And I don't think that a downtown hipster kind of person is going to be that worried about this being a pornographic cinema in the afternoon."
The market for pornography in movie theatres was gutted when the VCR came along in the early 1980s. Adult theatres have also suffered for the same reasons independent cinemas have — competition from the Hollywood blockbuster, the mega-plex, and the internet.
"The ones that are left are serving an art house clientele or a very niche neighbourhood community-centre kind of model," he said.
