This is topic Drive-In Location in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 10-31-2007, 12:35 AM:
 
With drive-ins seeming to make a comeback what would every one have to offer on choosing a location for a drive-in.
 

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Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 10-31-2007, 01:54 AM:
 
One of the biggest problems in trying to start a drive-in today is finding enough ground that is zoned properly. You have to remember when drive-ins first started there was no such thing as zoning.

Assuming that you find enough such ground that permits a drive-in movie, it will certainly be in a "commercial" zone of some fashion or another - meaning that it will command a premium price.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-31-2007, 05:38 AM:
 
Barry Floyd is probably one of the best examples of how this gets done. He went through the process of finding a site, only to have the locals shoot it down through protests at county meetings. He moved on, found another site and built his place from the ground up.

There are others who have built new drive-ins over the past few years, but Barry is on the 'net here, more than anyone I can think of.
 

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 10-31-2007, 09:14 AM:
 
Thanks Jack...

Before jumping into the "drive-ins are making a comeback" bandwagon, look hard into the viability of the business as a whole.

Back in the late 1940's and early 1950's (when most of the original 4000+ drive-ins were built), the country was still riding the victory wave of soldiers coming home from WWII. Instead of moving back into the clusters of the big cities, they spread out into the suburbs, and almost every one of them had a car or two to drive. Back then, most drive-ins were built out on the main highway on the fringe outskirts of town where land was cheap, the skies were dark, and well within a comfortable driving distance from the city and the suburbs.

Like Jonathan said, back then there was no zoning laws in place and practically no building codes either. You basically could build anything anywhere as long as you had the money and the will to do it. Todays climate is alot different.

When we first started exploring the possibility of opening our theatre, the first thing we did is take a look at the locations of the existing drive-ins (if any) in the area, also paying attention to the indoor theatres as well. Drive-ins are very much a "niche" type of business. It's not like the typical chain run multiplex - with one on every corner. What we did was try to find a location that didn't have another drive-in around within a 50 mile radius, close enough (30-40 minutes) from a major population base to draw from, and far enough away from any operating indoor theatre where clearances and day and date operation wouldn't be an issue. In our case we litterally laid out a map of Tennessee on the floor and marked all of the existing drive-in locations, and then started looking at the empty holes on the map. Where we finally ended up was a location that fit all of the above criteria... although 4 years later, our surrounding conditions have changed.

When we built in 2003, we were the only drive-in within 30-40 miles on the East side of Nashville, and we had one of only 4 screens in all of Wilson County. In December of 2004, a new 10 plex opened up about 12 miles away. In 2005 a new twin screen drive-in was built and opened about 25 miles away from us. In 2006 another 14 screens opened about 20 miles away. Honestly, out of all those new screens going up, the only one that made any significant impact was the other drive-in.

Our first location we found was an empty 12 acre parcel of land, out on the Highway on the outskirts of town (sound familiar??) with the landscape dotted sparsely with rolling farm land. Because it was zoned "agricultural" we had to go thru the rezoning process. At our zoning meeting in August of 2001, about 80+ people showed up to protest. Citing all of the old "stereotypical" drive-in issues (loud cars, teenagers, loud music, porno movies, etc.) we got shot down within 20 minutes. Moving on to our next site we found the old abandoned drive-in here in town, still relatively intact, although overgrown with weeds and junked cars. Once again we ended up at the zoning meeting. The same 80+ people showed up, citing the same issues. We eneded up getting "deferred" from the April meeting to the May meeting because the county commissioners insisted I hold a public meeting with the protesters to let them know "how much I was going to negatively effect the value of their property". We held the meeting... which was more like a lynch mob. At the May zoning meeting 200+ people showed up to protest, and they brought with them the news crew from the local CBS affiliate in Nashville. I was interviewed on the court house steps as the "Defeated Would Be Drive-In Developer".

Long story short..... We were invited to the community of Watertown (about 15 miles away) by the Chamber of Commerce president, and he litterally rolled out a map of the town and said , "Anywhere you want to put it.. we can make it happen."

We ended up in the Watertown Industrial Park, as it is the ONLY location in town that has water, sewer, 3 phase power, and natural gas all in one place, and for a drive-in you'll need all of the above.

In the end, we finally got to build our drive-in, the city earns some major sales tax revenue from us, and we have become one of the largest "family friendly" attractions in the county.

In a nutshell... look for a minimum 15-20 acres of land that can be rezoned as "Highway Business" (or whatever it's called in your area). You can build a single screen on a much smaller parcel, but I found out real quick that a newly constructed single screen drive-in is just a really neat hobby that doesn't generate enough cash flow to cover it's own expenses. Think 2 or more screens.

Look for all available utilities - Water, Sewer, 3 Phase electrical power, and natural gas..if it's available.
 

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Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 10-31-2007, 12:41 PM:
 
Thanks for the feedback, we are just in the "talking about doing it" phase and we figured finding a peice of land was the next step. it would be nice if we could get the land very soon so that we could get everything built and ready to go for next years season. What size building would we need to house the booth, concesion stand, and bathrooms?
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-31-2007, 12:56 PM:
 
Course, the price of the ground that you need to put an "Ozoner" in really counts as well, esp if your in a climate area that limits all year operation.

Are you going to run a business where the ground is more valuable than the business itself?

Hope you have great success in this venture, for the world of the Drive-In is in a catagory all by itself...being tons of fun to be in since a good quarter of my theatre life has been outdoors working in "ozoners"

-Monte
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-31-2007, 01:11 PM:
 
With all the talk about drive-ins being a waste of valuable retail space, I always thought it would be kind of cool and unique to build a "mall" and put a drive-in on top of it. What the hell, all that roof space goes to waste anyway. That way you would get maximum "retail" use of the land.

I predict that if the drive in 'rebirth' gets big enough, this will happen.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-31-2007, 06:43 PM:
 
Ya no longer need three phase power for a D.I. unless you have one hell of a huge popcorn popper. I know of many "single phase drive ins that get along just fine. With multiple single phase switchers in parallel you can run anything up to the largest xenon lamp made. In fact with power companies non-linear pricing on electricity if you don't use enough three phase every month you may be paying more for power than you should.

Mark
 

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Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 10-31-2007, 07:44 PM:
 
Mark is this something any liscenced elctrition would be able to do and are there any code issues that may arise by doing the power this way? Could you recomend any one in the Upstate NY area that would do this type of install?
 

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Posted by Charles Caron (Member # 3247) on 10-31-2007, 08:52 PM:
 
Scott: Some good basic info here. uditoa
 

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 11-01-2007, 12:53 AM:
 
Mark said:
>>Ya no longer need three phase power for a D.I. unless you have one hell of a huge popcorn popper. I know of many "single phase drive ins that get along just fine. With multiple single phase switchers in parallel you can run anything up to the largest xenon lamp made.<<<

Yes that's true, in fact I've seen such an installation at the Swan Drive-In in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and fellow Film-Tech'er Steve Wilson has such a set up at his drive-in in Indiana. Although it can be done and you could go ahead and "rig up" such a system, my question is "If you have the opportunity to choose your location such as with a new build, why would you?"
If you can find a place with access to 3 phase power, I wouldn't turn it down.

We've got 600 amps of 3 phase power at our drive-in, and I wish we had more. Both of our 4k power supplies for the lamp houses use it. The compressor / condenser unit for the HVAC system uses 3 phase as does the air handling unit, our 36" flat grill in the kitchen uses 100 amps of 3 phase, and the Giles deep fryer uses another 60 amps of 3 phase.

We are looking to convert the kitchen from all electric to all gas next spring. The gas company will run the 2" line from the street to the building for free, and we just have to pipe it to the kitchen. We plan on replacing our one electric deep fryer with three gas fired fryers, and replacing the 36" electric flat grill with a 48" gas char-broiler / flat grill combo unit.

Gotta remember... we're not talking about a movie theatre here, we're talking about a fast food restaurant that also happens to show movies in the parking lot.
 

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Posted by Steven Gorsky (Member # 603) on 11-01-2007, 01:03 AM:
 
Why are you converting to natural gas for the kitchen? I don't think that makes sense cost wise, since electricity is cheaper then gas.
 

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 11-01-2007, 01:10 AM:
 
Because gas fired equipment recovers temperature drops faster than electric does. In my business, time is everything. On sellout nights, there's nothing like having lines running out of the building into the parking lot because we're "waiting on fries".

Gas is a little more expensive than electricity, but explaining to a lobby full of customers whose movie started 10 minutes ago that we're "waiting on fries" costs more.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-01-2007, 01:32 AM:
 
Plus gas has a much higher BTU unit content where electricity can't even come close. Plus, the nice thing about gas is that, "when it's on, it on, and when it's off, it's off" i.e., You turn gas on, it's HOT, while you have to wait for electricity to get HOT..

Gas is just more efficent than electricity any day of the week..

I work at a Drive-In where we cook our hot dogs and burgers outside on a 3 burner BBQ grill, and you fill that grill up with patties and "tube steaks", there's a lot of heat contained in that covered grill to where I can get those items out in a quick.. as what's mentioned: times means everything..
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 11-01-2007, 09:23 AM:
 
Barry's right about recovery time.

We had electric fryers and pizza ovens. The pizza oven didn't like the constant "open & close" as we added, removed & checked our pizzas. The fryers were great until you loaded a basket full of frozen potatoes 2 or 3 times.

We went to gas units, and now we have equipment that doesn't much care how we use it. Recovery time has become a non-issue. That more than makes up for any cost increase, IMHO.

We'll be replacing our electric Lang grill this year, which will complete our conversion to gas.

Barry... I think I may envy you on the char-broiler. I haven't been able to convince Cindy that it would do much for our burger sales. With everything else we sell, she may be right. But I still wonder...
 

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 11-02-2007, 12:49 AM:
 

quote: Scott McGuire

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it would be nice if we could get the land very soon so that we could get everything built and ready to go for next years season.

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