10/22/03
By JOHN PECK and CHRIS WELCH
Times Staff Writers jpeck@htimes.comchrisw@htimes.com
Coming soon near you if you live in southeast Huntsville - a new 18-screen cinema in Jones Valley.
The city Board of Zoning Adjustments approved the project Tuesday night for a site behind the SuperTarget shopping center, Valley Bend at Jones Farm, at Carl T. Jones Drive and Four Mile Post Road.
The cinema would be operated by Rave Motion Pictures, a 4-year-old company based in Dallas that owns and operates movie theaters in eight states, predominantly in the South. The cinema is scheduled to open in November 2004.
"We think it's a positive move for Huntsville,'' said Valley Bend developer Raymond Jones Jr.
The Jones Valley project, combined with a 16-screen multiplex announced recently for Cummings Research Park and a four-screen cinema planned for the new Providence Village subdivision off U.S. 72 West, would give the city six theater complexes and a total of 78 screens.
Jones said all 18 theaters in the Rave complex will feature stadium seating, head rests, a slightly steeper rise for better viewing over the people in front, folding arm rests and a state-of-the-art screen and sound system. Plans show the main access points off Four Mile Post.
The complex would seat 4,090. The cinema would accommodate parking for 1,198 vehicles, more than twice the minimum requirement for a business of that type and size.
The area is zoned neighborhood business. Barry Crumrine with the city inspection department said that zoning allows theaters, but petitioners must obtain specific approval from the zoning board. The requirement gives the city leeway to reject a project for unusual circumstances or to attach stipulations such as distance requirements or better access roads.
Jones said market studies indicate the theater should do well.
The only other theater complex in south Huntsville is Hollywood 18 on South Memorial Parkway near Joe Davis Stadium, about four miles from the Valley Bend site.
Most of Huntsville's other theaters are in the western part of the city.
Regal Entertainment Group opened Hollywood 16 Theaters in 1994 and added two screens in 1998, changing the name to Hollywood 18. Regal also owns Madison 12, which opened in 1992 at Madison Square Mall. Regal is the world's largest motion picture exhibitor.
Carmike Cinemas opened a 10-screen complex on Old Monrovia Road in 1998.
News of the Jones Valley cinema comes almost a month after Regal announced plans for a 16-screen theater at the proposed World Famous Bridge Street project in Cummings Research Park's new commercial district.
Plans for Bridge Street, a 1.7 million-square-foot town center at Research Park Boulevard and Old Madison Pike, call for three or four apartment or condominium towers, a hotel conference center, 500,000 square feet of offices and a promenade of shops and restaurants over a man-made lake. Construction is expected to start next summer and take two years.
Providence Village, a planned community under construction along Huntsville's western edge, will feature a cinema with a minimum of four screens, said developer David Slyman. The Providence theater will include a restaurant.
Huntsville would be Rave's fourth location in Alabama; the company also operates theaters in Montgomery, Vestavia Hills near Birmingham and Daphne outside Mobile.
Rave also has cinemas in or planned for Little Rock, Ark.; Destin, Melbourne, Pensacola and Port St. Lucie, Fla.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Peoria, Ill.; Baton Rouge, La.; Cincinnati; and Fort Worth and Hickory Creek, Texas.
