Sunshine Cinema-replacing office building moves forward on Lower East Side

The developers of the new project have secured construction financing

The building that once housed Landmark's Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side will soon be no longer.

Crain's reports that East End Capital and K Property Group, the development firms that bought the old theater in 2017, have secured a construction loan for the property—meaning that demolition of that structure will soon be underway. Demolition plans were filed with the city's Department of Buildings a year ago, but the structure on East Houston Street is still standing.

Construction on the new, 63,000-square-foot building, designed by Roger Ferris and Partners, is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year. It'll rise nine stories and have room for seven office floors, as well as ground-floor retail.

Landmark's Sunshine Cinema opened in 2001 in a building that had served as a theater for more than a century, first for vaudeville acts and then for film screenings. But the theater has been in trouble for a few years now, and was dealt a blow in 2012 when the local community board voted against a plan that would have allowed the cinema to serve food and drinks.

The theater officially closed in January of 2018, and the building it's housed in—which still has the "SUNSHINE" sign above its old marquee—has been vacant ever since. Last year, the graffiti artist Faust painted the theater's old metal rolling gate with the word "SUNSET"; that, too, will soon be gone.