Downtown To Get A Movie Theater?

[Towne Cluber]

They have a history of announcing plans to build theaters in the suburbs, also with much media fanfare, that never make it past the press release. It is not just in Detroit.

They did the same thing in St Clair Shores a few years back. They also did it in Grosse Pointe and, thank God, that proposal never materialized.

Emagine just opened a new theater in Hartland a couple of days ago.

[K-slice]

This Thread seemed to miss the announcement in September that two sites were still in play, and that the theater had been officially named.

https://www.freep.com/story/entertai...es/1206722002/

Big Sean being, apparently, heavily involved in this project adds to the credibility to me. There would have been no reason to attach his name to something that he thought may flop.

I'm far more skeptical of the Alamo Draft House that was announced back in June, with construction supposedly starting this year. I haven't seen anything happening at the announced site and there has been no update about the project since.

[313WX]

It's possible that even Big Sean could be the hold up.

I assume he's a smart guy [[graduated from Cass Tech), he supposedly has the money and he seems dedicated to "giving back" to Detroit, but frankly he has no experience as a developer nor is real estate development his primary focus.

[poobert]

It's possible that even Big Sean could be the hold up.

I assume he's a smart guy [[graduated from Cass Tech), he supposedly has the money and he seems dedicated to "giving back" to Detroit, but frankly he has no experience as a developer nor is real estate development his primary focus.

Cass Tech is still just a high school and compared to the better ones in the suburbs doesn't stack up. One of the most ignorant, crude, and unintelligent people I ever worked for was a Cass Tech grad with no college.

He set off a few alarm bells for me at the bottom of that article. Whenever I hear vague phrases like "creating community" or "not just another ____" I think of all the weird, splashy projects in the city that failed. Anyone remember Asian Village? Neither Asian nor a village!

[Hypestyles]

I'll only believe it when it starts happening. I wish these things wouldn't be announced until financing is already secured, but that's too much for all the wheeler-dealers who want attention for this or that project.

[K-slice]

It's possible that even Big Sean could be the hold up.

I assume he's a smart guy [[graduated from Cass Tech), he supposedly has the money and he seems dedicated to "giving back" to Detroit, but frankly he has no experience as a developer nor is real estate development his primary focus.

Hmm, it's possible. I hope that Emagine would keep in control of the actual construction and development of the theater itself though. I wonder who approached who when it comes to the Big Sean/ Emagine partnership. If Big Sean came to them, and offered a large financial investment in the project, he may be trying to take the lead and inadvertently be slowing it down.

[JonWylie]

Hmm, it's possible. I hope that Emagine would keep in control of the actual construction and development of the theater itself though. I wonder who approached who when it comes to the Big Sean/ Emagine partnership. If Big Sean came to them, and offered a large financial investment in the project, he may be trying to take the lead and inadvertently be slowing it down.

It's kind of dumb to speculate that Big Sean is "slowing" this project down. They said they have a few locations and they hope to announce it around the end of the year. Hopefully we will hear something in the next month or so. This is pretty on par for Emagine, and especially with Alamo wanting to move in, they need to find a good place to put it to attract a good customer base. It sucks that its not already up but there's no indication that anyone is slowing it down or holding it back.

[K-slice]

It's kind of dumb to speculate that Big Sean is "slowing" this project down. They said they have a few locations and they hope to announce it around the end of the year. Hopefully we will hear something in the next month or so. This is pretty on par for Emagine, and especially with Alamo wanting to move in, they need to find a good place to put it to attract a good customer base. It sucks that its not already up but there's no indication that anyone is slowing it down or holding it back.

It's kind of dumb to take what I said out of context and not read the whole thread. I was simply exploring the concept 313WX put forth that he may be more of a hindrance on the project than a help. My original conjecture was that his name being attached to this project made it MORE legitimate and likely to come to fruition.

[JonWylie]

It's kind of dumb to take what I said out of context and not read the whole thread. I was simply exploring the concept 313WX put forth that he may be more of a hindrance on the project than a help. My original conjecture was that his name being attached to this project made it MORE legitimate and likely to come to fruition.

You were just lucky enough to be the last person in the thread to get the reply. Let me rephrase and say that whoever is thinking he is slowing this down is just making stuff up. Shit takes a long time. We should be asking more about Alamo and what happened to them. They had a site picked out over 6 months ago and haven't heard anything since. They said they wanted to start construction at the end of this year but clearly that hasn't started yet.

[313WX]

Hmm, it's possible. I hope that Emagine would keep in control of the actual construction and development of the theater itself though. I wonder who approached who when it comes to the Big Sean/ Emagine partnership. If Big Sean came to them, and offered a large financial investment in the project, he may be trying to take the lead and inadvertently be slowing it down.

Absolutely.

I'm not sure what the faux outrage from the other poster came from. I'm simply pointing out that Emagine may not be the reason [[or at least the sole reason) why this project is taking so much time.

If Big Sean is in fact spreaheading the project [[which seems to be the case if the theatre will bear his name) and Emagine is having no problems moving forward with their other projects [[like the one way out in Hartland), the ball may be in his court in terms of how quickly things move along.

[K-slice]

You were just lucky enough to be the last person in the thread to get the reply. Let me rephrase and say that whoever is thinking he is slowing this down is just making stuff up. Shit takes a long time. We should be asking more about Alamo and what happened to them. They had a site picked out over 6 months ago and haven't heard anything since. They said they wanted to start construction at the end of this year but clearly that hasn't started yet.

I agree about the Alamo thing. It seemed like they were all ready to go announcing the location and construction start as the first info releases, then... Nothing. If I were the reporter who wrote the original story I would undoubtedly inquiring about why this hasn't started yet.

[shawring]

any updates

[Vitalis]

Great thread! While I don't have a lot of faith in a viable economic future for movie theaters in general, an IMAX setting downtown [[Park/Adams/G.R. area) or between Brush Park and Eastern Market would be a very nice addition to a revitalized urban landscape. If the IMAX screen was built and heralded as "the largest screen in Michigan," and if this theater was able to book first-run fare, that could really make the auditorium a destination - not only for the burgeoning downtown/midtown residential population - but also for anyone seeking yet another venue to explore in Detroit. A caveat here would be to not have the place seat more than 400 or so patrons in order to give this facility a chance to succeed. Also, the vacant, ghost-ridden Fine Arts theater on Woodward could become ghost-busted, and turned into an art theater/revival house. And finally, I can't fathom why the Fox doesn't give more of a nod to its movie palace past and offer special movie events like anniversary presentations of films from the past or benefit premiers of the latest film fare - I guess they are doing too well with live stage shows to bother?