The building that would become the State Theatre opened in December 1952 as the Empire Theatre, designed by architects George W. Grey and Liu Sun-fo. It operated under that name for only five years before closing in 1957. After extensive renovations it reopened in 1959 under its new identity—State Theatre—and ran for nearly four more decades. The name change coincided with a period when North Point, on the northeastern shore of Hong Kong Island, was becoming one of the city's more densely settled districts. The theatre anchored the King's Road streetscape at numbers 277 to 291, a solid mid-century presence among the shops and apartment blocks. When it finally closed in 1997, the year of Hong Kong's handover to China, the symmetry felt almost deliberate—though it was almost certainly coincidence.

What makes the State Theatre architecturally unusual is its roof: a series of "parabola-like" concrete arches spanning the auditorium, visible above the roofline and described by conservationists as unique among surviving cinemas in Hong Kong. When New World Development began buying out the ground-floor tenants in July 2015—a prelude to demolition and redevelopment—Docomomo International, the international non-profit dedicated to documenting and conserving modern architecture, added the building to its "Heritage in Danger" list in March 2016. The move attracted significant public attention in Hong Kong. Heritage groups including Walk in Hong Kong, Docomomo Hong Kong, and the Conservancy Association issued a joint statement urging the Antiquities Advisory Board to grant the theatre its highest protection. The arches, visible and structurally expressive, gave conservationists a concrete, photogenic argument.

The Antiquities Advisory Board convened on 18 April 2016 to determine the theatre's grade. The government's own Antiquities and Monuments Office had assessed the building's interior as substantially altered, its original function lost, and its heritage value relatively low—a recommendation against Grade I status. During the meeting, however, board members pressed the AMO with follow-up questions. Officials admitted they had not fully examined the internal structural changes and had been making an informed guess. The board overruled the AMO's recommendation and voted to designate the State Theatre a Grade I historic building. It was an unusual outcome: a government body overturning its own specialist advice based partly on the admission that the advice wasn't solid. In March 2017, the designation became official.

With Grade I status secured, the conversation shifted to what the State Theatre might become. Architects WilkinsonEyre and Purcell were appointed to lead the conservation project; Variety reported in 2021 that the restoration was expected to take five years. Proposals had ranged from an indoor sports facility with rock climbing and zip-lining to a shared community space. The April 2021 exhibition—"Finding your, my, his or her State"—drew visitors with an instinct for nostalgia and gave New World Development a way to shape the narrative before construction work began. The theatre also carries its own minor film history: Bruce Lee's posthumously released 1978 film Game of Death was shot partly here, and director Fruit Chan used it in his 1998 film The Longest Summer. The arches endure; the films remain.