Galaxy movie theater to be torn down Galaxy movie theater to be torn down (February 18, 2005)

Furniture store to replace once-popular Rose Pavilion cinema
by Jeb Bing

Pleasanton's long-empty Galaxy 8 Cinema, the city's last movie theater, will be torn down late this spring and replaced by Broyhill Home Collections, a nationally known furniture maker and retailer.

The announcement was made by Pamela Ott, Pleasanton's Economic Development manager. Architect's renderings for the new 28,650-square-foot Broyhill store have been filed with the city Planning Department. They show a cream-colored, one-story building that will "occupy the existing footprint of the theater to be demolished and removed."

Representatives of the New Plan Excel Realty Trust in New York, which owns the Rose Pavilion where the Galaxy is located, said they could not comment on the development. Architect Jim Terry of Ware Malcomb Architects in San Ramon, the firm that is designing the Broyhill structure, also declined comment on the drawings it has submitted to city planners.

City Planning Director Jerry Iserson said the plans were submitted last week and are being processed. He expects that New Plan Excel and Ware Malcomb will present them as a demolition and new construction package to the Planning Commission in late March.

The process would be similar to New Excel's petition a year ago to tear down the Staples Office Supply and Linens 'n Things stores in the Metro 580 shopping center, which New Excel also owns, and replace them with a Kohl's Department Store. That project lasted through much of 2004 with Kohl's opening last October.

The Galaxy was built in the late 1980s and for more than 10 years was the premier movie theater in the Tri-Valley. Then Regal Cinema, a fast-growing national multi-screen theater developer out of Tennessee, built its 20-screen super theater in Dublin's Hacienda Crossing. At the same time, it bought the Galaxy and closed it down.

For a time, a group of investors and art film aficionados worked to revive the Galaxy for "alternative" films, but their effort was unsuccessful. The Galaxy's last show was Nov. 5, 2000, and the theater has been dark ever since.

Ott said the Broyhill store will be "a good fit" for the Rose Pavilion, which is home to several other name brand furniture retailers.

Founded by Thomas H. Broyhill in North Carolina in 1905, the company was sold to Interco Inc., a diversified holding company, in 1980. Today, Broyhill is part of Furniture Brands International, a manufacturer of residential furniture and parent company of Lane, Thomasville, Henredon, Drexel Heritage and Maitland-Smith product lines.

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