Coney Island’s Shore Theater will go hotel with LPC approval

The transformation of Coney Island’s Shore Theater, once a hub of activity for the neighborhood—and which has been sitting, unused, for more than 30 years—will soon get underway. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans to convert the circa-1925 theater into a hotel, bringing the project into its next phase.

In 2016, developer Pye Properties purchased the site for $20 million, and announced its intention to turn the site into a hotel two years later. But the theater was designated an individual landmark in 2010, meaning they’d need to get the necessary approvals to make any changes to the structure. Pye’s original proposal was sent back to the drawing board in January by the LPC, which noted at the time that the plan was “missing the Coney Island-ness of the site,” per the Brooklyn Paper.

It seems that the revised plans, which were presented at yesterday’s LPC meeting, hit the mark. The exterior of the building will feature a sign that harks back to the building’s glory days, and will have new and refurbished terra cotta and limestone elements. The new plans will also keep and repair a fire escape stairway on the side of the building.

The building itself has long been vacant and in disrepair, but per the LPC designation report, the theater once “represented the optimistic attitude of that period for the successful year-round development of Coney Island as a premier entertainment district.” It originally opened as the Loew’s Coney Island Theater in the 1920s, and got its name changed to the Shore Theater after the building changed hands in the 1960s.