2 days ago
Portland's State Theatre building for sale
Jun. 12—The landmark Congress Street building that houses the iconic 1929 State Theatre was listed for sale on Thursday.
The six-story building, which has more than 120 tenants, has a listing price of $10.9 million, according to the Porta & Co. Commercial Real Estate website. The building has been owned since 2015 by Burlington, Vermont-based Crostone Portland LLC, according to city property records. That company bought the building for $4.2 million.
The building's largest and best-known tenant is the 1,900-seat State Theatre, which opened in 1929 as a movie palace and has operated since the 1990s as a concert venue, bringing hundreds of national acts to Portland each year. The theater has "several years left" on its current lease, said Erik J. Hoekstra, a managing partner in the company that owns the building.
Hoekstra said his company may also try to negotiate a longer lease with the theater, to help ensure its future. He said that the theater's success and status as a focal point of Portland's music and entertainment scene is a big reason why "we've been able to be successful as the building's owners."
"The current operators have done a phenomenal job, and our goal is for them to continue to operate for a very long time," said Hoekstra. "We couldn't have been successful without them."
The State Theatre is leased and run by Crobo LLC/State Theatre Presents. It had been closed between 2006 and 2010, but then was reopened by the current management after a $1.5 million renovation. The State Theatre also books outdoor summer concerts at Thompson's Point in Portland.
The theater's online calendar lists shows booked into October. Shows scheduled in coming days and weeks include Clutch on Friday, The Big Gay Dance Party on June 21, Sleep Theory on June 22 and Disco Biscuits on July 12.
Hoekstra said his company put the building up for sale because its focus is shifting toward industrial properties and hotels. The listing for the Congress Street property says that because current tenants are paying below-market rents, "a buyer should have the ability to quickly add 12%-15% to the gross rents." The listing says the building contains "entrepreneurial workspaces and creator-driven suites" and that the diversity of tenants reduces investment risk.
The Arts District along Congress Street, where the State Theatre building is located, has seen a number of business closings and vacant storefronts in recent years. The owners of the Renys department store, just a couple blocks from the theater building on Congress Street, announced this week they will be closing that location, largely because sales have not rebounded since the pandemic.
After its early life as a movie palace showing Hollywood fare, the State Theatre had become a pornographic film venue by the late 1960s and remained one until the late 1980s. It was renovated and restored in the early 1990s for use as a performing arts space, but a series of operators could not make a go of the place, leading to its closing in 2006. The theater has been run continuously as a performing arts venue since 2010.
City records show the building was sold three times in the past 26 years, before the present owners bought it: for $5.2 million in 2003, for $5.1 million in 2002 and for nearly $2.6 million in 1999.
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