San Clemente’s shuttered Miramar Theater and bowling alley, each of them a landmark at North Beach, appear headed toward restoration and rebirth as restaurants and an events center.

The City Council unanimously approved an agreement on Tuesday, Oct. 17, to waive a requirement for 92 parking spaces as an incentive for the property owners to renovate and preserve the historic structures.

The iconic buildings occupy the 1700 block of North El Camino Real, a site that has room for off-street parking. The movie theater, which opened in 1938, and the bowling alley, which dates to 1946, were built at a time when the city saw no need to impose parking requirements. The city’s parking code went into affect in 1955.

Developers have made repeated unsuccessful attempts to revive the vacant site since the Miramar showed its final movie in 1992. The city, trying to help, used a $20,000 grant from the California Office of Historic Preservation in 2012 to hire a design firm that specialized in saving old movie houses.

The firm, inspecting the premises, suggested movies, stage events, weddings, arts celebrations, conferences and special events, while dining in the bowling alley portion could complement the event center.

“North Beach can become the entertainment hub of San Clemente,” former Mayor Wayne Eggleston told the City Council. He is a local preservationist who has been helping the landowners through the permit process.

Eggleston recalled how town founder Ole Hanson intended for that part of town to be a place for entertainment.

Larry Culbertson, former president of the San Clemente Historical Society, suggested that North Beach has ample parking to allow the city to waive the parking spaces for the Miramar project.

“I believe that the vast majority of San Clementeans support the project and the granting of the waivers,” he said.

George Gregory, a North Beach resident, held a differing view. He suggested the project will need many more than 92 spots for parking:

“Four-hundred people at the concert hall, plus the employees, the equipment, the trucks, the roadies, now you put in seven or five restaurants with all the employees, the delivery trucks, the patrons, we’re talking 700 to 800 people and we really expect 92 cars with 800 people to arrive at North Beach?”

City staff said the restaurants – however many – would share a finite amount of seating. And, they said a parking study showed the North Beach parking lot has 196 empty spaces at its peak period, which isn’t the same time when this project anticipates to be at its busiest.

A nearby restored landmark, Casino San Clemente, had a wavier to skip 64 parking spaces and those haven’t posed a problem, officials said.

Under terms of the Miramar parking agreement, the city agrees to provide parking at an off-site location if the need ever arises. The city has identified three potential sites across El Camino Real from the Miramar.

“This is something that people have wanted for a very, very long time,” Mayor Kathy Ward said.

The project still requires approval from the California Coastal Commission, and the city can’t issue building permits until a judge lifts an injunction imposed on the city because of a lawsuit challenging the city’s zoning for homeless shelters.

The city recently changed the zoning rules and is waiting for a possible sign-off from the state’s housing agency to present to the judge.