A blow for Oxford St as Palace shuts the Chauvel cinema
In a further blow to the once-thriving retail and entertainment precinct, the last of three Palace cinemas on Oxford Street, Paddington, will close after the long weekend.
The art house chain, whose lease on historic Paddington Town Hall expires in March, is closing the struggling and increasingly dilapidated Chauvel on Monday night.
The highest-grossing film of the cinema, which has been an artistic institution for more than four decades, InterferenceIt will be my last show.
Palace Cinemas once operated the Academy Twin (closed in 2010 due to a rent dispute) and the Verona (closed when the building was sold for redevelopment in 2024). He moved his eastern suburbs art house and festival programs from Verona to a former Hoyts cinema that became Palace Moore Park.
Palace general manager Benjamin Zeccola said Chauvel has been struggling to stay afloat since reopening after Covid-19. It had planned to close it in late 2024, but a rent reduction from the City of Sydney has temporarily extended the life of the facility.
“It’s disappointing,” he said of the closing. “But my disappointment was tempered by a sense of relief. [we’re] “I’m no longer responsible for maintaining something that doesn’t actually work.”
Customers have become less tolerant of the theater’s poor condition in recent years, Zeccola said.
“Customers were saying, ‘Look, if comfort isn’t improved, there are more comfortable theaters we can go to,'” he said.
Although the council had long planned to restore City Hall, Zeccola said that did not happen in time for Chauvel to continue operating.
“We had great openings for French and Italian film festivals there,” he said. “There was a real atmosphere and sense of history. You could feel Sydney’s incredible cinema history in the bones of the building.”
More than two years ago, when Chauvel’s closure appeared imminent, Lord Mayor Clover Moore called it “a much-loved institution on the famous strip” and said the City of Sydney was committed to revitalizing Oxford Street, including “significant building regeneration”.
Alex Moir, the palace’s marketing officer, was working at the cinema’s box office when he started working temporarily at the chain in 2014.
“It was the place to go for events back then,” he said. “Hosting screenings for fundraisers, filmmakers showing their films to friends, and hosting screenings for film schools.
“We hosted a variety of festivals, public forums and filmmakers’ discussions. It was an important piece of art for Sydney.”
The partial collapse of Chauvel’s roof due to a storm during the screening of the Russian crime drama revealed how much work the building needed. Leviathan At the event, former secretary of state Bob Carr appeared on a Q&A panel moderated by this writer.
“During the screening, it started raining,” Moir said. “I’m not sure many people noticed because the movie was so cold and wet.”
Before Palace took over in 2006, Chauvel ran a popular cinematheque program of classic and contemporary films.
But all is not lost for cinemagoers on Oxford Street.
Following the renovation of the City Hall, the municipality is expected to call for tenders for the re-operation of the cinema. Zeccola said Palace would be keen to return and at least one other cinema operator is believed to be interested.
There are also plans to expand the Golden Age Cinema and Bar in Surry Hills with new cinemas during the redevelopment of the Verona site.
Chief executive Barrie Barton said designs were still being worked out but there would be two cinemas and two multi-purpose auditoriums suitable for films, live music, small stage performances and presentations.
He hoped those cinemas and the adjacent restaurant-bar area would open within two to three years once the redevelopment is approved.
“I think the Golden Age thrives on our own food and drink as well as the great restaurants around us,” Barton said. “We’re trying to work on a similar layer of different experiences that are collectively worth getting off your couch and turning off your Netflix for an evening.”
In Sydney’s ever-changing cinema landscape, the Art Gallery of NSW has also marked the launch of its own film. cinematheque next month.
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