They plan to open their third theater in May at Lake Creek Festival Shopping Center at 13729 Research Blvd. in the far northwest submarket. They've leased the 129,000-sf theater building for 10 years and are remodeling and refitting it to a dinner-and-a-movie format.

Owners Tim and Karrie League opened the first Alamo Drafthouse at 409 Colorado St. in the downtown in 1997. In 2001, they added a four-screen theater, the former Village Cinema at 2700 W. Anderson Lane in the central submarket. A franchised location will open in Houston later this year.

Paul Blandford, director of operations for Alamo, said the company is responding to customers who live in Cedar Park, Round Rock and Georgetown. "They've been begging us to open a location in Cedar Park," he says. The Lake Creek Festival site isn't quite in Cedar Park, but it's close enough.

The building has been on the market for about 1 12 years after Regal Cinemas closed it in favor of a more modern multi-screen theater at nearby Lakeline Mall. In recent years, big theater companies opened theaters featuring stadium seating and state-of-the-art sound systems in a move that put earlier generations of theaters on the market. A multiplex inside Northcross Mall has been turned into a conference center; a four-screen in the south submarket is now Strait Music store; an even older south submarket theater was turned into a laser tag emporium.

The older format works just fine for Alamo as waiters and waitresses move around each theater during shows, taking orders and delivering food and drinks.

The Lake Creek Festival was virtually empty when Alamo closed the deal with Lincoln Property Co. The theater seats had been removed, concession stands were gone and screens had disappeared. "The only things left were carpet and the curtains," Blandford says. "The curtains were not in great repair and we ripped out the carpet."

Blandford declines to say how much money Alamo is spending to finish out the theater for its needs, but says it does add up. "It can be very expensive buying all the kitchen equipment, plumbing, everything that goes into doing a kitchen by itself," he says. "And on top of that, going in and buying theater seats, curtains, screens, projectors, everything to make it a theater." The remodeling will bring the loss of one screen in order to add the kitchen.

Instant Insights /

129,000-SF Theater Retooling Under Way

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