By Andy Sevilla.
With much fanfare and celebration, Texas Cinema broke ground on construction of an $18 million, 75,000-square-foot entertainment facility in Kyle, which will feature a movie theater, bowling alley and restaurant.
The massive project would be the first of its kind, and city leaders said at the groundbreaking ceremony last week that Kyle is awaiting the entertainment venue with open arms.
“It’s actually a really iconic kind of day for the city of Kyle, because the citizens have been requesting and demanding, very vocally, the desire for a movie theater – some kind of entertainment – for a very long time,” Kyle Economic Development Director Diana Blank said. “It was one of the first things that I started working on (seven years ago), and it’s been a long time coming.”
Kyle Mayor Lucy Johnson said at the groundbreaking ceremony that though Texas Cinema was not the first company to pitch the entertainment facility idea, they held true to their promise to bring Kyle a much-awaited product.
“This wasn’t the site that we were expecting, this wasn’t even the company that we were expecting, this wasn’t even necessarily the format that we were looking at when we first started trying to get a movie theater here,” Johnson said. “But, all that doesn’t matter to the kids – both young and grown – that are going to really enjoy this cinema.”
She added, “And really it’s an entertainment facility, because it’s not just a movie theater – it’s a restaurant, it’s a bar, it’s a bowling alley, it’s an arcade, it has everything that you could possibly want to keep your kids, or your husband, occupied for several hours at a time.”
Mitchell Roberts, who heads the project for Texas Cinema, said the venue will have an 11-screen movie theater, a 14-lane bowling center, full-scale restaurant and bar, 3,500 square-foot arcade and event rooms available for conferences, meetings and birthday parties. The facility will be located at 3200 Kyle Crossing, near Home Depot.
“It’s more than a theater,” Roberts said. “Our goal is to bring something unlike anyone has ever seen.”
“We want the city of Kyle to know this is a gem, an absolute gem,” he said. “We’re dropping a facility that would fit in the middle of downtown Dallas here in Kyle.”
On June 20, 2013, Kyle council members approved a development agreement with Schulman Partners, LTD, that would have granted the partnership financial incentives in the form of about $1.1 million in property and sales tax rebates over a 15-year period, if they built a movie theater project (similar to Texas Cinema’s plan) in the city.
About a month after council members approved the agreement with Schulman Partners, Texas Cinema approached Kyle with their project – not asking for any financial help – and it was off to the races.
At the time, Blank said the city’s market could not support two movie theaters and in the end it would come down to who would break ground first.
In January, Schulman Partners, which is in the midst of building other theaters across Texas, pulled the plug for its Kyle project, leaving Texas Cinema to stake its claim on the city.
“A lot of people would say it’s a victory for us,” Roberts told the Hays Free Press. “In our opinion, it’s a victory for everyone – it’s a victory for us and a victory for the city of Kyle,” because now Texas Cinema can continue with their plans for “a theater that’s long overdue.”
“In a race like this it’s about who beats the other guy,” Roberts said. “While the market in Kyle is growing, it can’t support two theaters. In reality it’s whoever breaks ground first.”
Roberts, whose company owns theaters in San Marcos and New Braunfels, said the entertainment facility in Kyle is expected to be open by Thanksgiving this year.
“I’m really happy to be here today,” Johnson said at the Jan. 31 groundbreaking. “When I got elected back in 2008, nearly six years ago, Diana (Blank) was already working on trying to get a theater here. And it’s been a very long, long path to get here to this groundbreaking today.”
“I can’t thank Texas Cinema enough for being willing to come here and work with us and get dirt moving so fast on this project,” she said. “It was a little nerve wracking this past year as to what was going to be in our future when it came to an entertainment facility, but knowing the plans (Texas Cinema) have for this site, I couldn’t be prouder to welcome them into Kyle and to get earth moving today.”
