posted 04-03-2006 02:10 PM                    

quote: Carmike Cinemas Press Release

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Carmike Cinemas’ Announces Plans to Build New 8-Screen,
All Stadium Seating Theatre In Ardmore, OK

Columbus, Georgia – (NASDAQ: CKEC) Carmike Cinemas, Inc. and Burk Collins & Co., Ltd. announced today its plans to build a new 8-screen, state-of-the-art stadium seating theatre at the Ardmore Commons Development at the Northeast corner of 12th Avenue SW and Rockford Road in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Amenities for the new 8-screen theatre will include state-of-the-art stadium seating, high back plush luxury seating with retractable armrests equipped with cupholders, wall-to-wall screens, digital sound and advance ticketing at the box office and on-line via www.fandango.com. Stadium seating is the premiere seating choice for moviegoers; in which patrons are offered unobstructed sight lines to view the screen. The lobby area will be spacious offering Coca-Cola® products, popcorn and other traditional movie-going fare.

Carmike Cinemas, Inc. is a premiere motion picture exhibitor in the United States with 307 theatre locations and 2,469 screens in 37 states, as of September 30, 2005. Carmike’s focus for its theatre locations is small to mid-sized communities across the United States. More than 80% of its theatres are located in communities with populations of fewer than 100,000. Carmike Cinemas, Inc.’s Common Stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the ticker symbol “CKEC”. For more information visit Carmike Cinemas’ website, www.carmike.com. Burk Collins & Co. Ltd. is a Texas based development company with offices in Hurst, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. For more information, please visit burkcollinscompany.com.

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posted 04-04-2006 08:28 PM                    

quote: Darryl Spicer

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However, I have looked a tone of the theatres on that site and I have yet to find a theatre using that logo next to a movie title.

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quote: John Pytlak

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Press releases about "agreements" for thousands of screens in a year or two need to be taken with a grain of salt.

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posted 04-07-2006 02:13 PM                       

quote:

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Cinema Park-Adiso: Little Italy weighs saving an old theater against adding much-needed parking

Articles / News & Opinion
Posted by Webmaster on Apr 04, 2006 - 10:30 PM
By Michael Gill

Sheldon Wigod began his turn with the Mayfield Theater in 1976. Back then the professor and entrepreneur could sell out 500 seats by showing classics like American in Paris, Singing in the Rain and Charlie Chaplin movies. For 10 years, the movie house was the heartbeat of Little Italy. People parked in a lot up the hill, where new housing now stands.

But in the '80s, Wigod says, VCRs and cable TV "basically killed revival houses all over the country." The Mayfield went on the ropes. Wigod played more avant-garde films to draw crowds, but one night in 1986 — after a screening of "some sort of Israeli gay movie, or something" — he closed the doors for good.

In the 20 years since then, galleries, restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries have made the neighborhood buzz with commerce. So when the Little Italy Redevelopment Corp. began a master-planning process in 2003, planners thought it made sense to replace the aging movie house — built in 1923 and recognized by the Cleveland Landmarks Commission — with something decidedly less romantic: an elaborate parking deck. Architect Paul Volpe, who consulted with the CDC on the master plan, suggests retail on the first floor with a ramp behind it, housing on the second floor with parking and another ramp, and a third level completely devoted to cars. They'd save the marquee and portions of the facade, if possible.

But property owners say no one asked them what they thought.

"No one contacted me about that plan," says Terry Tarantino, who owns the theater building. "No one sat down with me to tell me what it's about."

Tarantino opened his restaurant La Dolce Vita 17 years ago. With neighborhood charm and opera singers to serenade weekend dinner customers, he built it into a landmark of his own. He has ideas about the future of the historic theater, too, and how it fits with the rest of the neighborhood. And it doesn't include parking.

"Let's pretend someone offered me a ridiculous amount of money to make it into parking," he says. "I still wouldn't want to do it. It's not about the money."

No one denies that the neighborhood could use more parking, but the difference of opinion over how to get it points to profoundly different perspectives on the economic development of neighborhoods.



FRANK MILLS, WHOSE COMPANY Urban Paradoxes consults with neighborhood groups about development plans, met with a group of Little Italy business and property owners a year ago. He says the parking deck proposal has become a catch-all for general dissatisfaction with the level of community input that informed the master plan.

"In a larger sense," he says, "the people just don't feel like their voices were heard."

Two surveys — one from the CDC, the other by a neighborhood business owner — seem to bear that out. Survey results provided by Little Italy Redevelopment Corp. with a copy of the master plan indicate that of 62 respondents, 19 agreed with the planning principles presented at a meeting, 19 more did not, and 14 left the question blank. Asked if there was any part of the plan they strongly agreed or disagreed with, just four respondents said they agreed with what is vaguely called the "Mayfield Theater development."

Four others strongly disagreed.

Selena Corbo says her family — owners of Corbo's Bakery, the now for-sale Club Corbo and other properties on the strip — also was not contacted about the master plan, even though it incorporates part of their property in the parking deck proposal.

Early in the planning process, business owner Carmen Magri was frustrated by what she saw as a lack of neighborhood involvement. She began to conduct her own survey. Using the county recorder's office, she identified 342 property owners and sent them surveys about the future of Little Italy. Nearly 120 responded, and only 23 percent "felt that the Redevelopment Corp. was doing a good job." More than one-third thought the CDC should be "restructured."

Several attempts to contact representatives of the CDC during the last week went unanswered.

Winefred Weizer, a doctoral student in urban planning at Cleveland State University, prepared a report from Magri's results. She was cautious to note that the survey didn't include renters, and that the results were from a self-selecting group of voluntary responders, but concludes that strong response from property owners indicates that the plan shouldn't be finalized without further study. Referring specifically to the parking proposal, she says the trick is to address the problem "without destroying the very attributes that brought people" to the neighborhood in the first place.

Magri's frustration with the level of community involvement in the plan has motivated her to organize. Starting last year with a Web site that promotes neighborhood businesses, she's gathered contacts, has about 80 members, and has hired consultants to conduct an independent community dialog about the future. Now she's in the process of incorporating as a non-profit organization. Her group, Heart of Little Italy, is about to grow into a kind of grassroots neighborhood business association — an entity that could act on behalf of member businesses by hiring consultants, developing plans and channeling money. It would inevitably compete with the CDC for neighborhood hearts, minds and even money.

Mills, of Urban Paradoxes, wonders if the money that would be invested in parking couldn't be better used for a more progressive solution, like moving and improving the nearby East 120th rapid transit station. Instead of courting automobile traffic, the neighborhood could capitalize on pedestrians, encourage transit use and bicycling, and keep the charm intact.

REGARDLESS OF WHETHER or how the neighborhood's parking issues are addressed, the challenge remains to find a viable use for the long-vacant theater. Tarantino says he's been cleaning up the inside and is considering other uses, including a wine bar.
Magri suggests that it could be adapted for use as a bank branch. She says it would also serve the neighborhood well if the marquee and fa�ade were spruced up, "so it's not an embarrassment to the neighborhood. If they can find a use for it, so much the better. Of course we could use more parking. But don't demolish a neighborhood icon to get it."

Brian Jones, a painter with a background in marketing and the owner of Festivo Gallery, has just been elected director of the Murray Hill Arts Association, which plans the art walks. His studio on Murray Hill Road, just a few doors from Mayfield, is cheerful with color and unapologetic recasts of Picasso, Matisse and Klimt. For the entire time he's been doing business here, the theater has been a dark spot on the strip. He wonders why it couldn't be converted into a murder-mystery dinner theater or some other creative re-use.

Then he looks away pensively. "But then I wonder if anyone would really miss it if it were gone."


This article is from The Cleveland Free Times
http://www.freetimes.com/

The URL for this story is:
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