- 96 -
building area basis was less subjective than the value indicated
on a per seat basis.
Mansbach's conclusion regarding the appropriate seat count
for the Redwood City Fox is further called into question by his
analysis of his comparable sales. He was unable to provide the
seating capacity for one of his comparable sales, the Laurel
Theater. Additionally, the San Jose Fox, which Mansbach
considered the most comparable to the Redwood City Fox, had no
seats when it was sold. Mansbach thus evaluated the sale of the
San Jose Fox on the basis of 1,538 "planned" seats.
We find, for comparison purposes, the appropriate seat count
for the Redwood City Fox to be 1,130. We do not agree with
Mitten/Reynolds that number of seats is not a proper unit of
comparison. With respect to how the number of seats affects
value, Crocker's expert, Carneghi, stated:
I'm not relating the seats based on their income
potential. I'm relating the seats based on their
audience potential. So in the market comparison, the
prospective buyer of the subject or any of my
comparables, I believe would logically say, as San Jose
did, "I know the theater's not going to make a profit;
we all know cultural facilities don't make profits.
But what I -- what I want to know is, how much of my
population, how much of my market can this theater
accommodate -- i.e., how many people can I seat in this
theater?" That has to be an influence on value.
We agree with Carneghi's analysis on this issue. While we
realize that a purchaser would not be interested in the number of
seats as a measure for the potential income stream the theater
could generate, we think a purchaser would assign value to the
theater based on the number of patrons the theater could
Page: Previous 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011