Construction to Start in April on Downtown San Bernardino, Calif.,
Multiplex
Mar. 23 (The Business Press/KRTBN)--Construction of a multiplex theater
that officials hope will help spur a revitalization of downtown San
Bernardino is scheduled to begin next month, now that public and
private financing for the project has been arranged.
The 20-screen CinemaStar Luxury Theaters complex should open around
Thanksgiving if construction begins on schedule before April 30, said
Tim Steinhaus, director of the San Bernardino Economic Development
Agency.
A 20,000-square-foot retail complex planned to be built next to the
multiplex is also expected to be up and running by November, in time
for holiday shopping season, Steinhaus said.
Planned for the northwest corner of Fourth and E streets near Carousel
Mall, the project is expected to cost about $17 million.
The theater project is the product of a 1995 agreement between the
city of San Bernardino and Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Development,
which will own the theater and retail complex. CinemaStar Luxury
Theaters Inc. of Oceanside will operate the complex.
San Bernardino officials hope the megaplex, which will feature stadium
seating, will do for San Bernardino what simnica did for those cities'
downtown areas: attract visitors at night and on the weekends, times
when San Bernardino's downtown is nearly empty.
"If you look at any of the cities with active downtown areas, they
all have a theater," Steinhaus said. "A theater is what gets people to
come downtown, particularly at night."
The city expects to earn about $160,000 in sales and property tax
revenue annually from the theater complex, and about $200,000 from
rent, said Ron Winkler, project manager for the city's economic
development agency.
As for the annual sales tax increase the complex could generate for
surrounding businesses, Winkler said that's more difficult to estimate.
He said businesses in Long Beach and Santa Monica reported a 15% to 20%
increase in business after multiplexes were built in those cities, and
that San Bernardino businesses could receive a similar boost from the
CinemaStar complex.
"We expect our sales tax revenue to go up, but it's difficult to
estimate how much," Winkler said.
Steinhaus said the redevelopment agency has arranged for a $7 million
grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the
project. The redevelopment agency is also contributing $3.5 million
from its own reserves.
Metropolitan Development has agreed to contribute $3.6 million and
CinemaStar $2.2 million toward the project.
Winkler said the project took the better part of three years to get
past the planning stage because it involved multiple sources of public
and private funding, each with their own underwriting criteria and
regulations to follow.
The project was also bogged down in the early going by unsuccessful
negotiations with AMC Entertainment.
"AMC kept upping the ante, so we broke off those talks and went to
CinemaStar," Winkler said. "That and the different sources of funding
are what really caused it to take so long."
Metropolitan Development President Rex Swanson said nine tenants,
including Starbucks Corp., have expressed an interest in the retail
complex next to the theater, but none have signed a lease yet.
(c) 1998, The Business Press, Ontario, Calif. Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News.
By Joseph Ascenzi
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