The Guild Theatre (originally the Taylor Street Theatre) is a historic former theater building in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, in the United States. The theater was completed and opened in 1927. It closed in 2006 and was converted for retail use in 2018–2019. Since 2019, a

Kinokuniya is a Japanese bookstore chain operated by , founded in 1927, with its first store located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Its name translates to "Bookstore of Kii Province". The company has its headquarters in Meguro, Tokyo. One of the company's g ...

bookstore has occupied the space.

History

The Guild was the last remaining single-screen theater in Downtown Portland, completed in 1927. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Guild screened classic films, advertised as "Oregon's finest film classics theater". Later, it changed to showing second-run films. The theater has been closed and out of use since 2006, but a renovation began in 2017, for an unknown purpose. The building was originally called the Taylor Street Theatre until 1947, when J.J. Parker changed the name to the Guild after purchasing the theater. It closed in 2006. The Guild was the home of the

Northwest Film Center PAM CUT–Center for an Untold Tomorrow, formerly the ''Northwest Film Center'' is a Pacific Northwest, regional media arts resource and service organization based in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, United States that was founded to encourage t ...

and the center's Portland International Film Festival from 1998 to 2006. The center had been allowed to lease the theater from its owner, Tom Moyer, for just $1 a year. A proposal in 2010 to renovate and reopen the theater did not come to fruition.

2017 remodel

In late 2016, Tom Moyer's company,

TMT Development TMT Development is a real estate development company based in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1988 by Tom Moyer. The company owns and operates 8.5 million square feet of commercial real estate throughout Oregon and southwest Washington state. ...

, the property's owner, began work on remodeling the building. TMT also owns the adjacent Studio Building (a nine-story office building), and the work on the theater building is part of that $8 million project to renovate both buildings. In January 2017, the company told the ''Portland Business Journal'' that the former theater space is being remodeled for a new tenant whose identity could not yet be revealed, due to a

non-disclosure agreement A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legal contract or part of a contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish ...

. At that time, TMT was forecasting that its part of the remodeling work would be completed by early spring 2017, and the new tenant would then take over the site, in preparation for its own work on the former theater. Renovation of the marquee took place later in 2017. In May 2019, the Japanese

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

chain

Books Kinokuniya is a Japanese bookstore chain operated by , founded in 1927, with its first store located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Its name translates to "Bookstore of Kii Province". The company has its headquarters in Meguro, Tokyo. One of the company's g ...

announced that the former theater would be the site of its new Portland store. The bookstore opened in August 2019. After the remodeling and conversion of the space, the ''

Portland Tribune The ''Portland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published every Wednesday in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Pamplin Media Group, which publishes a number of community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area. Launched in ...

'' described the modified interior as "light and airy, to the point of being sparse. The high ceilings are decorated with long strands of fiber, and the upstairs balcony, once the domain of the projectionist is given over to tightly packed rows of Japanese comics and graphic novels." In 2019, Behind the Museum Café's owner Tomoe Horibuchi confirmed plans to open a second location called Book of Tea Café, within Kinokuniya. The cafe opened on August 21, 2019.

References

External links

*
Trying to gild anew the Guild Theatre
by David Stabler (July 8, 2010), ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 185 ...

'' {{Theatres in Portland, Oregon 1927 establishments in Oregon 2006 disestablishments in Oregon Southwest Portland, Oregon Theatres completed in 1927 Theatres in Portland, Oregon