Only Walk-In Theater : Burbank OKs 10-Screen Movie House

Burbank’s Pickwick Drive-In, the only movie theater in a city where much of the motion-picture industry is located, will no longer be the only show in town.

The Burbank City Council on Tuesday approved an agreement with developer Victor Georgino to bring walk-in movie theaters to downtown Burbank--in fact, a 10-screen, 2,500-seat theater complex. Construction is scheduled to begin in December, and city officials said they hope the project will be completed by Christmas, 1986.

“It has been an embarrassing situation for a city that is billed as the entertainment capital of the world not to have a walk-in theater that its own residents can enjoy,” City Councilman Bob Bowne said. “But I believe this will be a centerpiece and a model theater that our citizens can be proud of.”

Other Theaters Considered

Georgino’s project is one of three proposed Burbank movie-theater complexes. Two other theater chains, Pacific Theaters and United Artists, are considering building multiplex cinemas, city officials said.

The approved complex will be in a 36,650-square-foot building bounded by First Street, Palm Avenue, Orange Grove Avenue and the Golden Mall. It will have two theaters with more than 400 seats, and smaller theaters with from 213 to 244 seats, according to Susan Boyle, an administrative analyst with the city’s Planning Department. The larger theaters will be equipped to show 70-mm films with stereo sound, she said.

The complex will be managed by American Multi-Cinema Inc., the nation’s third largest theater chain.

Burbank Multi-Cinema, the partnership headed by Georgino, will pay the Burbank Redevelopment Agency about $1.1 million for the property. The city will spend about $1 million to acquire surrounding property for a parking lot.

May Lure Customers to Malls

City officials said they expect the theaters to attract customers to the Golden Mall and the proposed Towncenter regional shopping mall.

The agreement came after years of frustration for Burbank officials, whose efforts to attract a walk-in theater were hampered by high prices for land and a scarcity of sites.

Burbank film-goers have had to use the Pickwick--one of the few single-screen drive-ins in Southern California--or travel to communities such as Glendale, North Hollywood or Sherman Oaks since the Magnolia Theater on San Fernando Boulevard, the city’s last walk-in theater, was torn down in the late 1970s to make way for a condominium project.