New theater, restaurant going up in Wasilla

WASILLA — If all goes according to plan, two relatively sizable businesses could open here this winter.

John Fabiano, vice president of Anchorage-based Gourmet Ventures, said Wasilla’s new Red Robin restaurant is scheduled to open Dec. 13.

“We are very excited,” Fabiano said. “I have actually been personally working on this project for three or four years now trying to get open in Wasilla.”

He said the store should be familiar to anyone who has been to one of the restaurant’s Anchorage locations. It will have the same menu and, if a liquor license comes through, the same options at the bar.

He said Anchorage customers had been asking for a Valley restaurant since before the company announced it was coming to town. Red Robin has been in Alaska for 25 years and will be moving its Northway Mall location into the new Tikatnu Commons shopping center this year.

As for the Wasilla branch, Fabiano said the target is to employ something on the order of 100 to 150 people there, though that number might shrink. That happens opening a new location — employees who were hired sometimes find other jobs before the restaurant can open.

The other big project coming to town is the new movie theater under construction next to Wal-Mart.

John Schweiger, CEO of Coming Attractions Theaters Inc., the company based mostly in California and the Pacific Northwest that is building the theater, has been in the Valley most of the summer overseeing the construction. A year ago, he said the theater was aiming for Christmas 2010. That was before they started building in this unusually wet summer.

“Too many days of rain,” Schweiger said. “That slowed up the block work because the block — they were having to cover the block with plastic so it wouldn’t get too wet.”

There have also been holdups with the theater’s neighbor. The gas company and power company couldn’t get permission from Wal-Mart to run a temporary easement on the store’s property.

“We’ve never had a neighbor do that to us before,” he said.

The new projection, he said, is to have the theater open sometime after the New Year and before April 15, 2011.

“Whether we pick up some time and catch up remains to be seen,” he said.

The plan is for a 12-screen, 40,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art theater, though he’s not previewing the details of what amenities it will offer.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.