After closing down in March of 2020, Cleveland Park’s Uptown Theater has now been named a historic landmark by local historic preservation officials.

D.C.’s Historic Preservation Review Board made the designation last month, though it only applies to the exterior of the building, since the interior has undergone multiple renovations over the years.

The theater famously hosted multiple world premieres, including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 and Jurassic Park in 1993. Longtime locals also remember it for its sold-out showings of Star Wars in 1977 and, more recently, a visit from the Downton Abbey cast for that movie’s premiere in 2019.

When Uptown Theater closed two years ago, some residents hoped to save it by designating it as a historic landmark. The building was already considered a “contributing building” within the Cleveland Park Historic District, which protected it from being demolished without a good cause. 

After the local historic board designation, the District can now work to add the theater to the National Register of Historic Places, but the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board asked for revisions to add in a discussion of the racial segregation and desegregation of the site before applying.

The city’s designation may make the building’s structural future more secure, but its operational future remains a mystery.

It’s still up in the air whether another movie theater operator will step in to run the venue. Theater chain Landmark Theatres, which runs several movie houses around the District, was apparently eyeing the Uptown last year, WTOP reported in October, though the theater remains closed and it isn’t clear that those plans are coming to fruition.

Given that the interior is not historically protected, “another kind of business, like a drug store” could take over the space, but it’s unlikely to become a residential building, Rebecca Miller, executive director of the D.C. Preservation League, previously told DCist.