Restaurant fights Palm Springs move to acquire patio for Plaza Theatre

A hiccup in the Downtown Plaza Theatre restoration project, the Palm Springs City Council voted 4-0 last week to approve a resolution of necessity of Kalura Trattoria's patio, which is the first step in acquiring the property through eminent domain.  The restaurant is located next to the theater.

The city says it needs to widen an existing 10-foot easement to 20 feet in order to meet California building code requirements for the theater renovation, citing safety concerns.

“We didn’t know until the fire department made its findings about how wide it needed to be but that happened long before we broke ground on the theater. So these negotiations with the building owner have been going on for at least a year now.”

J. R. Roberts, Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation president

The restaurant owners are strongly opposed to the move, saying the process has been unfair and will impact their business.

“It was poor planning and the dark spot is whenever you start a project of this size that is $20 million of public money that is being granted by the city to the association of the theater, they should have had worked out the egress and ingress to the theater prior to breaking the construction, as far as I know. You don’t start backwards, you star building and push everyone out of the way.”

Ignazio Battaglia, Kalura Trattoria owner

The city is offering to move the patio from it's current position to the front of the restaurant along the street.

The city will continue negotiations. If unsuccessful, the city would need to file a lawsuit to acquire the property. 

Stay with News Channel 3 for more.