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Sun-Ray Cinema building to sell, historic designation prevents parking garage without approval

Rumors swirled after an online petition said the Riverside building, at 1028 Park St., would be demolished and turned into a parking garage.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The building that houses Sun-Ray CinemaBREW Five Points and office spaces will be sold, the Times-Union confirmed Tuesday. 

Rumors swirled after an online petition said the Riverside building, at 1028 Park St., would be demolished and turned into a parking garage. Residents soon after began posting to social media and signing an action campaign to save the building. 

As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, the campaign had about 1,500 signatures.

But, because the building has a historic designation, established during the current owner’s development process, it cannot be torn down without approval from the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission. 

The petition's creator, Adam Guillette, said residents worried the designation would not hold because of renovations done to the building decades earlier.

"Jacksonville deserves to have at least one historic theater," Guillette told the Times-Union.

Sun-Ray Cinema, which was bought and remodeled in 2011, is a building tenant, not the owner. The business posted on Facebook saying the cinema owners spoke to the potential buyer in January and have not been offered a lease extension.

“Despite our attempts in the past to purchase just the theater portion of the building which is possible through a process called condominiumizing, they have turned us down,” the Facebook post read. “We have dreamed for years of renovating this theater into the gem  that it could be for the neighborhood, but it looks like that might never happen.” 

WARNING: BAD NEWS POST A patron of Sun-Ray found out about the impending sale of the building we are currently in so...

Posted by Sun-Ray Cinema on Tuesday, April 16, 2024

The business encouraged patrons to sign the action campaign, which sends an email directly to the owner. 

According to the Duval County Property Appraiser’s website, the building was last sold in 2004 to the current owners for $2 million.

Sun-Ray Cinema not currently set to close

The theater has a long history in the neighborhood after opening in 1927 as the Riverside Theatre, designed by Roy Benjamin, who also designed the Florida Theatre. It was remodeled in 1949, but closed as a theater in the early 1980s before an acting group took over in 1984. It then became a nightclub from 1991-2004. 

It once again returned as 5 Points Theatre in 2008 before being renovated in 2011 by the current owners. 

The cinema closed its adjacent Sun-Ray Cinema's Pizza Cave in February after opening in 2020. The cinema owners, Tim Massett and Shana David-Massett, said they would open it as a private event space. 

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