Dollar for dollar, that decision would make plenty of sense. Property values in San Jose have skyrocketed since theater company Syufy Enterprises first signed a 50-year lease on the land. Syufy wasn’t likely to pay the difference, because it’s been trying to get out of the theater business for years. In 2006, it sold its huge Century Theaters chain to Cinemark, and liquidated all its Cinemark stock just a few years later. Other uses of the land would also likely be more efficient. Despite only housing six screens, the three domes and their huge parking lot take up a tremendous amount of space — space that could offer more jobs and more housing in a different configuration. Even the architect’s own granddaughter claims she wouldn’t have wanted to keep the theaters around at the expense of progress.

But the issue isn’t as clear-cut as it initially seems. Vincent Raney built the domes on his family’s own land, and that granddaughter stands to profit from the transaction. Faced with the closure of a beloved institution, some San Jose residents are trying to save the domes, arguing that they have a place in history. They’re attempting to have the theaters declared historic landmarks, which would make demolishing them far more difficult. And even though the oldest theater hasn’t quite reached its 50th birthday — a milestone for landmark status — there may be some merit to the idea.

Silicon Valley and Hollywood had a special relationship

"I have a lot of experiences with buildings where people say they’re not important, they’re not historic, they’re not significant," says Alan Hess, a local architecture critic, historian, and recognized expert on the mid-century "Googie" style that the domes represent. "But they are, for many reasons." While you might think of historic landmarks as places that existed long before you were born, often in the urban center of a city, Hess argues those qualifications may not make sense for Silicon Valley. The theaters represent an important historic period when San Jose was becoming a multi-centered suburban metropolis — "That has been a difficult concept for many planners and city officials to grasp," says Hess — and San Jose is a relatively young city compared to its peers. The dome theaters were the first buildings on what was previously an empty patch of land, and there simply hasn’t been time for them to grow old yet.

Besides, Silicon Valley and the movie industry had a special relationship. "When you look back to the ’60s when the Valley had become a magnet for young people wanting to get into tech, what are the things they did? Most of them, whether they were in tech or not, went to the movies," says Franklin Maggi, an architectural historian who helped review the Century 21's nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. And as Hollywood began to produce big blockbusters like Jaws, the Valley became an important test market for new films. "San Jose represented a very broad-based market that Hollywood could use to test out a movie in its early days," says the historian.

In fact, the Century 22 was one of the very first theaters to show Star Wars in 1977, and both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are said to have personally favored the domes to show off their new films. Spielberg was actually a senior at the local Saratoga High School the year the Century 21 opened, and later saw shows at the domed Century 25 on Saratoga Avenue. Reportedly, Spielberg was also the one who came up with the idea that Ralph McQuarrie’s spaceship in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial should feature a dome, and the resulting spaceship bears an uncanny resemblance to the dome theaters lit up at night. While we couldn’t reach Spielberg for comment, his famed co-producer Kathleen Kennedy offered a few words: "Some of the most exciting preview screens I can remember of our films were held at the Century dome theaters."

But just because the cinema was important to Silicon Valley, should that mean these particular buildings deserve special treatment? That’s the issue before the San Jose City Council, which will eventually make the final decision on whether to keep or raze the theaters. "We’ll hear from residents repeatedly that this is where I saw Star Wars, or Jaws, or any number of movie premieres... but you have tens of thousands of theaters across the nation that can say the very same things," says San Jose city council member Pete Constant. But on the other side of the aisle Don Rocha — who admits he snuck into the theaters more than once as a kid — argues that the domes are unique. When Mayor Chuck Reed asked the State Historic Resources Commission to deny historic landmark status, city-council member Rocha took a stand, pointing out biases and inaccuracies in the mayor’s letter that favored the landowner’s position.