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Preserving the Ken: From Silver Screen to Community Scene
November/December 2025
 Iconic front face of the Ken Cinema |
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 All photos by Maggie McCann |
With thanks to SOHO member Maggie McCann for the Metro View article and to Madison Geering of the San Diego Business Journal for her original reporting.
For more than 75 years, the bold red marquee of the Ken Cinema has stood sentinel on Adams Avenue, its name synonymous with independent, foreign, and classic films. When the theater went dark in 2020, it left a hole in Kensington’s cultural heart, and many wondered whether The Ken would ever return to the community in any form at all.
Now, thanks to a restoration-minded new owner with a potent adaptive-reuse concept, that familiar marquee once again carries good news. Scottsdale developer Tom Frenkel, through his family-run Clayton Companies, is restoring the historic theater, which opened in 1946, and reimagining it as The Ken Community Suites—eight to ten small business and professional offices that preserve the spirit and structure of the landmark while giving it a new purpose.
Frenkel, collaborating with the firms Element Design Build Inc. of San Diego and Scottsdale's Aline Architectural Concepts, said the project will retain and restore the marquee, recreate its original lettering, and add a small patio outside the preserved ticket window facade. Interior elements being saved include the curved ceiling decking and even the original film projector, which will be mounted high on a wall as a tribute to The Ken’s cinematic past.
The former 300-seat auditorium will become a light-filled, open-concept workspace with glass partitions and repurposed wood from the original building. Removing the sloped, concrete floor under the seats created a two-story space for suites on a mezzanine level, beneath exposed metal roof trusses. Frenkel has emphasized that quality craftsmanship and neighborhood scale are guiding principles, ensuring The Ken remains a point of pride for the community.
“I fell in love with Kensington,” Frenkel told the San Diego Business Journal, adding the building has "a lot of emotional appeal" and intriguing elements from its past. He has hired professionals to pursue historical designation for the theater.
Maggie notes: “Keep your eyes on the marquee in the coming months. As the work progresses, Tom thought it would be fun to use the marquee to send messages to the neighborhood. I think the main message that he has for us now is, 'I Come in Peace!' We could have wound up with a developer that wanted to scrape the whole thing and build a 12-story nightmare.”
After sitting empty for five years, The Ken is poised to open its doors once again by the end of 2025, this time as a place for local entrepreneurs, professionals, and creatives to gather and grow, keeping the cultural landmark's legacy alive in a new way.
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