Criterion Theater

Miyamoto provided structural engineering to the redevelopment of two adjacent buildings, the Criterion Residential Building and the Mann Theatres on Santa Monica’s renowned Third Street Promenade.

The redevelopment project combined the two structures to maximize the high-end retail space available for lease on the first and second levels. The upper levels were converted into offices and 32 urban residences just blocks from the beach. Some of the resulting primary modifications to the buildings involved the addition of new damper-braced frames and removal of interior N-S shear walls to create one large, open space.

With views of the Santa Monica Pier and Pacific Ocean just a glance away, the Criterion Theatre complex’s location on the pedestrian-only promenade is an innovative approach to merging existing buildings into a successful adaptive-reuse project. The Discovery Channel came out to film the installation of the dampers in a program showing how dampers protect buildings in high-risk seismic zones from earthquakes.