[URBAN NOTE] "Someone paid $2.9 million for the Metro Theatre"

[rfmcdonald]

I first posted the above picture of the Metro Theatre, a grungy porn theatre on Bloor Street West in Little Korea, two years ago when it seemed there was a chance it could become an art theatre. Toronto Life's Informer says that, instead, the place sold to people who want to transform it into a gym and retail space.

The Metro Theatre, near Bloor and Christie, closed late last year, ending its 35-year run as Toronto’s most prominent (and eventually, last remaining) porno theatre. Its co-owner, Karim Hirji, had been trying to sell it for years, and had listed the building for $3.59 million as recently as 2011. Now we know it ultimately didn’t fetch quite that price.

Property records show that the building sold quietly in August 2013, a few months before the theatre officially shut down for good. The buyer was a numbered company directed by a woman named Saroj Jain, who couldn’t be reached for comment. The sale price? $2.9 million—which, while not quite equal to the original asking price, is still a nice sum for a 75-year-old building in need of major fixing up. And, as a matter of fact, the new owner already has some fixes in the works.

On May 21, Jain’s company applied to the city for a minor zoning variance that would allow it to gut the interior of the theatre, creating two commercial spaces: a large rec-hall area where the theatre used to be, and a smaller retail storefront facing Bloor Street. The plans call for the building’s facade to be left essentially as-is, although minus the 1970s-era porn posters that have goggled the eyes of neighbourhood youngsters for a generation. The street-level frontage would be replaced with plate glass.