A Texas-based movie theater chain reportedly has dropped plans for a theater in Midtown because it couldn't secure 300 parking spots it said it needed.
The nine-screen Alamo Drafthouse was to be developed at 94 Stimson St., roughly catty-corner from Whole Foods and just north of a stretch of parking lots and vacant buildings owned by the Ilitch organization. According to Crain's, developer Detroit Rising Development LLC was in the midst of buying the one-acre parcel from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department for $1.5 million when Alamo Drafthouse terminated their agreement
"Alamo needed a surety that the parking was going to be available for 15 years; we could not secure exactly what was going to fit their need to make the investment," [said Jonathan Hartzell, a partner with the developer.]
There are no other users in line for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department-owned site at 94-110 Stimson St. west of Woodward Avenue off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Hartzell said.
"Alamo has turned attentions to other locations," Harzell said, noting that those other locations are not in Detroit.
Cinema Detroit is the only theater in the area with daily screenings, and it has just two screens and limited seating.
There are plans to eventually develop a 10-12 screen Emagine closer to downtown. That theater was expected to be open by 2020, but an entity affiliated with Emagine last year sold the building that was to house it.
