San Francisco’s 112-Year-Old Roxie Theater to Buy Its Building

The nonprofit group that operates the Roxie Theater, the 112-year-old theater which for a half-century has shown arthouse and independent films in San Francisco, is on the verge of buying its Mission District building.

The Roxie entered into an agreement last year with its landlord of 45 years to purchase the 16th Street property, a sale which is expected to close in 2025. The sale would include the theater’s main auditorium, its smaller Little Roxie theater two doors down, and a space between the two currently home to cocktail bar Dalva.

“Nonprofits owning their own space is so critical to their sustainability. And I think we need a story of hope right now, for San Francisco, and for arts and culture,” said the Roxie’s executive director, Lex Sloan.

Sloan said discussions between the Roxie and the owners about a potential sale have been ongoing for years. In 2022, the San Francisco Arts Commission awarded the Roxie a $50,000 grant to create and implement a fundraising campaign toward the purchase.

That campaign’s “silent phase” has already raised nearly $5.5 million of the Roxie’s $7 million goal, with most coming from large donors, including a leading gift from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Now, the Roxie is reaching out to the public to close the $1.5 million gap.

Sloan declined to reveal the purchase price for the property, although she conceded that it is lower than $7 million. The higher fundraising goal, she explained, will provide a comfortable pad for the future, and allow the theater to address deferred maintenance and expand its programming options.

The theater currently starts most screenings at 6 p.m., Sloan said, and has slowly begun adding earlier shows, as well as thinking about off-site satellite events. Acknowledging that it may be a “dream,” Sloan even suggested: “What if there was a rooftop cinema?”

One thing the theater cannot do is expand physically beyond its current footprint. Sloan said there were no plans to knock down any walls, or take over the existing Dalva space. As part of the sale, the Roxie will become Dalva’s landlords.

The property is owned by the Abecassis family, whose patriarch Samuel Abecassis bought it in 1989. Samuel died in 2000, and the building has been owned ever since by the family, who understand the Roxie’s importance to the neighborhood, Sloan said.

Sloan called the Abecassis family “incredible partners throughout the last 40 years,” noting that their rent was reduced by 50% when the theater was forced to close due to the COVID pandemic. (The Roxie also took that time to upgrade its disability access.)

Over the years, the Roxie has hosted a who’s who of figures from the film world, including Akira Kurosawa, Barry Jenkins, Errol Morris and film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. On April 21, body horror director David Cronenberg is a special guest.

And while movie theaters continue to close nationwide, support for the Roxie has been strong, Sloan said.

“We’ve certainly seen, in the last year, audiences returning to the theater in ways that we didn’t even see before COVID. It gives me hope, every day, when I walk out and see the line around the block for a film.”