Movie theater may come to Wasilla

WASILLA — A movie theater developer said he hopes to build a movie theater in Wasilla and has crossed his first checkpoint at the city’s planning commission.

John Schweiger, who had little time to talk Wednesday before he hopped on a plane, said he’s been working on the project for a little over a year with help from Cheryl Metiva at the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce and her husband Marty Metiva, a city councilman and mayoral candidate who will face attorney Verne Rupright in a runoff election Oct. 28.

According to Jim Holycross, Wasilla’s planning director, Schweiger applied to take 12 acres of the 29-acre parcel next door to Wal-Mart on Seward-Meridian Parkway and rezone it from rural residential to commercial. The remaining 17-or-so acres will remain residential. Schweiger said he plans to build a theater on the 12-acre commercial plot.

Holycross said the measure cleared the planning commission unanimously and will next move on to the city council for a hearing at its Nov. 24 meeting.

“It appears to meet the criteria and it’s pretty straightforward,” he said.

From there, Holycross said, Schweiger will have to enter a process known as a conditional use permit site design review wherein the city will look at issues such as drainage and access to the site.

Schweiger’s company’s Web site lists 21 theaters under the aegis of Coming Attraction Theatres, all in Oregon, Washington or Northern California. The Web stie lists Schweiger as the founder, saying he began the company when he worked to renovate a theater in 1985 in Ashland, Ore.

In Wasilla, Schweiger said, people seem to be excited by the prospect of a movie theater.

“If you were going to put in a theater in New York City it’d be no big deal. But in Wasilla, it’s an event,” he said.