Movie Theaters in Detroit - Alamo drafthouse, and Big Sean-Emagine Theatre

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Originally Posted by JBMcB

They could do a multi-level building with parking on the bottom floors and theaters above.

However, the location seems crazy. You'd probably have decent foot traffic in the winter and spring from the university. However, the university would be mostly empty during the big summer movie season. You can put a nice big sign on the building facing I-94, but there is no easy way to get to the theater from that freeway. You'd have to get off at John R or Beaubien and snake your way through side-streets. From the Lodge you can get off at Grand Boulevard and that wouldn't be bad.

A location over by Woodward would make more sense.

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Most people search for show times online, so foot traffic or having a big sign as advertising really isn't that important. As long as the theater is somewhere in the greater Downtown Detroit area, is reasonably easy to find [[unlike the now closed RenCen theater) and provides free parking, it should be fine.

If they're working with Wayne State why not look towards one of their underutilized spots on Woodward.

Parking lot 33 sits right next to a Q line stop and could there is a giant garage half a block away.

Or as was mentioned, the empty grassland on the SW corder of Warren and Woodward. This also sits right on the Q line stop.

This suggested spot just seems so awkward. Emagine is big into making their locations destinations, not just basic theaters. I can't imagine they would want to do something lesser than their Novi or RO locations on such a meaningful project.

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Originally Posted by Lowell

This had not been sealed and nothing in the article seems to address parking which, as most likely know, if very scarce there. Maybe they big WSU lot will suffice but it seems a stretch.

Emagine Entertainment Inc. wants to build its new Detroit movie theater with rapper Sean "Big Sean" Anderson on an oblong Wayne State University-owned property off I-94 sandwiched between a pair of parking structures near the law school.

The vision for what the university calls Lot 22, however, has been slow to proceed and Paul Glantz, cofounder and chairman of Emagine, said that while he hopes to reach an agreement with WSU, his alma mater, he is beginning to explore other unspecified areas in the city as a backup plan.

Wayne State publicly acknowledged in late June that Emagine was a finalist for university property but that announcement flew under the radar. Wayne State declined to comment for this piece.

"We aspire to reach an agreement with Wayne State and we would be delighted to locate on their property," Glantz told me.

This marks the first time a specific site has been publicly confirmed for the planned $25 million theater, which was announced in February 2018 as the Big Sean Theatre Powered by Emagine.

But things have been largely quiet, disrupted in no small part by a global pandemic that crippled the movie theater industry.

Sources told me several months after that announcement that there were negotiations to put the theater at Michigan Central Station, which Ford Motor Co. had just paid $90 million for, but nothing materialized.

Plans call for a 10- to 12-screen multiplex that would seat between 1,000 and 1,300 people. It would include a music venue that could also host events such as lectures, seminars and comedy shows.

A plan to build a nine-screen Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas LLC location on a roughly 1-acre property on Stimson Street off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard west of Woodward Avenue was torpedoed in December 2019 after an arrangement for 300 parking spaces to accommodate moviegoers could not be reached.

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This is exactly what I was looking for thanks.

That is a bizarre location, for anything other than a parking lot.

Wayne owns oceans of parking lots on cass/canfield, why not build there? Or on the above-mentioned underutilized grassy patch on Warren/Woodward.

FWIW-Cinema Detroit will be moving operations to the Senate Theatre on Michigan & Livernois soon. Watch this space!

FWIW-Cinema Detroit will be moving operations to the Senate Theatre on Michigan & Livernois soon. Watch this space!

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Originally Posted by 56packman

FWIW-Cinema Detroit will be moving operations to the Senate Theatre on Michigan & Livernois soon. Watch this space!

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I have mixed emotions about this. Cinema Detroit gave midtown an additional entertainment option that fit in with the midtown being the cultural center of the city. However, the Senate Theater is an actual, purpose-built movie theater that is most likely underutilized. I wonder what will happen to the existing programming and the use of the organ if Cinema Detroit takes over that space.

It seems like a bit of an isolated location. I wish the Ilitches would get serious about their "District" and work with Emagine to get a movieplex in the District Detroit. The parking lots behind the Fox are just begging for something.

The Detroit Theatre Organ Society owns the Senate Theatre... unless that has changed, I don't think that they are going to move their fabulous former Fisher Theatre Organ from the Senate. Increasing the amount of programs at the Senate would be great to help the facility remain functioning.

That has to be better than a storefront location [in Midtown] for Cinema Detroit. Midtown will still grow without the cinema... and it will be yet another addition to the Michigan Ave. renaissance.

I’m on the BOD of the Detroit Theatre Organ Society. We are forming a partnership to include Cinema Detroit. All of their shows will be one weekend a month, leaving us with the remaining 3 weekends for our own programming.