Valley moviegoers may have more choices

WASILLA — Reports of multiplex theaters coming to Wasilla are multiplying.

Last week, Coming Attractions Theatres announced it had cleared an initial hurdle to build an eight-screen complex next to Wal-Mart. The city’s planning commission assented to its plan to rezone 12 acres of a 29-acre parcel from residential to commercial.

This week, a local contractor announced it has been working with Regal Cinemas since June of this year on a plan to erect a 12-plex theater somewhere in Wasilla’s core commercial district.

Asked if he could be more specific about a potential location, Butch Ehmann, president of F-E Contracting Inc. said, “I really can’t do that at this stage.”

Plans, he said, are in their infancy. His company is busy putting together a cost estimate for Regal.

Ehmann said real estate representatives from Regal Entertainment Group toured the Valley in August looking for a good spot to place the theater. They narrowed the field of potential sites to two. Once a site is chosen, Ehmann said, the company can move ahead with permitting and other concerns with the city.

Wednesday, Ehmann’s company released a draft site plan for its planned 12-plex theater. The plan includes two restaurants, a retail outlet and ample parking.

“Typically, that’s what the theater folks like to see. They compliment each other,” he said of the retail and eating establishments. “Those things can always change depending on who would want to be there. But that’s a basic set of what they like to see.”

Regal Cinemas is a familiar presence in Alaska, owning Dimond, Fireweed and Totem theaters in Anchorage, plus Goldstream Stadium 16 in Fairbanks and Kambe 3 in Kenai, according to its Web site.

Regal, Ehmann said, hopes to roll out the Valley theater at the same time it opens yet another Anchorage theater, this one a 16-screen IMAX theater in North Anchorage.

Coming Attractions Theatres has 21 theaters, according to its Web site, in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. John Schweiger, the company’s founder, said he’s been working with local officials on the theater project for a little over a year.

Jim Holycross, Wasilla’s community development director, said Schweiger’s proposal is due next before the city council, which will decide whether or not to approve the planning commission’s recommendation.

If both theaters go through as planned it will mean a crowded market for Mat-Su Cinemas, the Valley’s only venue, a three-screen theater on the Parks Highway built in 1988.

Sandy Morgan, the theater’s owner, said flat-out that a big company moving in would mean she moves out.

“We would just sell the location here and just move on,” she said.

Theaters have to bid for movies and her small family operation is simply incapable of competing against a large theater chain. But she’s not upset about it. The theater’s been good to her, she said, a blessing she attributes to God. If God’s plans include her family selling the theater, they’ll find something else, she said.

“It’s a dream, but sometimes you have to let the dreams go,” she said. “I just made up my mind I can’t let the stress get to me. My health is too important to me.”

But then this isn’t the first time she’s had to confront speculation about theaters coming to town.

“We’ve been putting up with this for probably 12 years,” she said. “Until they break the ground, why get stressed? This is just life. If it’s meant to be, it’s going to happen.”