George Kirkorian, Photo from Kirkorian Premiere Theatres website.
Lexington, KY – California movie theater developer George Krikorian is planning to build an 11-screen movie theater in downtown Lexington, directly across Broadway from the site of another planned movie theater.
Krikorian finalized an agreement with Robert Langley of Langley Properties who owns the land and an adjacent parking garage along Broadway, according to Harold Tate, former president of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority and project manager on the theater development.
“We finally reached an agreement with Robert and we’re moving forward,” Tate said late Wednesday.
The announcement comes shortly after Dallas-based Look Cinemas announced plans to locate directly across from this site on the corner of High and Broadway, diagonal from the Lexington Center and the Hyatt Regency.
“Our intent is to be open first,” Tate said of the $15 million to $18 million project which he said should be under construction in early July and available for the summer movies of 2015. Kirkorian's company, Kirkorian Premiere Theatres, has seven complexes around California.
“It will be a multilevel complex so it will not be a suburban like theatre complex, it will be a very urban infill one,” Tate said. Plans call for two LFX screens, similar in nature to an IMAX screen, but not branded through the same corporation, a 16 lane bowling alley, which he said has traditionally been located below ground in otherKrikorian developments so as to insulate the noise it creates from the theaters that will be on three different levels above.
In addition, Tate said there will be a sports bar that will have a 90-foot viewing screen and a restaurant.
Tate, as head of the DDA, had previously worked with Krikorian on plans for a theater near UK’s campus on Angliana, but that project never materialized.
When asked if Krikorian chose the location because it was adjacent to the proposed Rupp Arena Arts and Entertainment District, Tate said: “Not really. I’ve been working with George on this eight years now, he’s just always wanted to be downtown somewhere and we looked everywhere from Angliana over to Main Street and all that.
“The entertainment district does kind of play in, but that’s not the main reason to why he’s going there. His concern was just to be somewhere downtown,” Tate said.
The theater will be designed by TK Architects of Kansas City. Tate said the architects will be in town next week to finalize plans and should have renderings at the time to present. In addition to the two large format screens, Tate said the theater will have four “screening rooms” that can be used for private events, screenings or parties, but the theaters with a total of only around 50 seats would still be part of the general admission sector of the business.
While Krikorian’s current developments are all in the state of California, he spends a lot of his time in the Lexington area, Tate said as he owns a sprawling horse farm near the Jessamine and Woodford county line.