By WES FERGUSON
Cruise down City Lights Drive sometime to admire the new streets, white sidewalks and leafy rows of trees.
The features were intended to mark a pretty perimeter around Kyle’s first movie theater. Instead, they’re evidence of a promise delayed: Long after City Lights Theatres abandoned plans to open a cinema here, the manicured streetscape rings an empty lot in the unfinished Kyle Crossing development.
But now the city’s economic development director, Diana Blank, said that serious discussions have been entered with two companies who are interested in the site, which sits beside the Target and Kohl’s stores on the Interstate 35 access road a block south of FM 1626.
“We realize there’s a huge need for an entertainment venue in our community, and we’re really focusing on getting someone in there,” Blank said. “It’s one of those things where everyone keeps asking and making suggestions, but it doesn’t happen overnight.”
Blank declined to name the companies involved in the talks.
City Lights, a small Texas company with theaters in Georgetown and Weatherford, had made plans to build in Kyle before the credit collapse of the Great Recession. But the company was unable to secure financing, and the project had languished since 2008.
“We’ve had interest from a lot of theater companies for a long time, but City Lights had rights to the site,” Blank said. “They held onto the option for a long time, but they finally realized they couldn’t make it happen.
“Once City Lights walked away, we really started pursuing it.”
Kyle Crossing developer Dave Berndt wouldn’t discuss details of the talks.
“We’ve had some discussions, but it’s a little early for me to comment on any of that,” he said.
Other movement is under way at the commercial development, he added.
“We have a couple of restaurants that we are about to put under contract,” Berndt said, “but until they actually close we don’t disclose who they are.”
