At Last, ACTION! L.B. Cinemas OKd

Coming attraction: A posh, 16-screen downtown movie complex with an array of pleasures from chic boutiques and bars to trellised courtyards.

The $40-million project sailed through the City Council this week, completing years of city efforts to develop a desolate city block, bounded by Pine and Pacific Avenues, Third Street and Broadway.

Construction is scheduled to begin in January and be completed in 1992, which would end a cinematic drought that has forced some Long Beach movie fans to trek to Westwood for foreign and less-known films. The last theaters in downtown Long Beach resorted to showing pornographic films before shutting down a decade ago.

Moviegoers in the new Janss/AMC complex will be able to sit in state-of-the art cinemas with 3,500 total seats featuring cup-holder armrests. The theater operator has also agreed by contract to show an eclectic mix of movies, officials said.

The complex will also offer a score of restaurants and fast-food outlets and 142 ocean-view apartments with rents ranging from $975 to $1,374 a month.

Developers and city officials hope that the upscale project will help rejuvenate the struggling downtown. “This is a very gutsy project,” said Michael Francis, assistant director for the Redevelopment Agency.

“We’re trying to provide the spark plug that will bring people downtown to get an 18-hour life back,” he said. “We’re satisfied we can do it--but there’s no guarantee.”

Janss and a group of Japanese investors called TYS Long Beach Associates plan to invest $40 million, but a lot of public money also is at stake.

The city’s Redevelopment Agency, which oversaw talks for the 65-year lease, estimated that it will invest more than $20 million on parking, real estate and other expenses. The agency calculates, however, that money it will receive in rent, parking revenues and increased property taxes on the agency-owned lot will enable it to break even.

The city itself should also receive more than $171,000 annually in business licenses and fees, according to Redevelopment Agency estimates.

“It’s a good deal for everybody,” said Susan Shick, the agency’s director.

Planners presented the City Council with a preview of the complex Tuesday. The cinemas will be grouped around a courtyard entrance off Pine Avenue. The outside of the structure features fancy tiles and a slender pink tower--an effort to blend with the Art Deco look of nearby buildings.

The cinemas will include a cappuccino cafe and automated teller machines allowing moviegoers to use bank cards to buy tickets and load up on popcorn and soda. The theaters will be on the second level, above a street level of trendy stores.

The presentation, which followed nearly three hours of tense debate about another development issue, was a hit. Councilmen discussed the project with childlike excitement and uncharacteristic humor.

Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, whose district includes downtown, had earlier talked about how he was looking forward not only to good movies but to the arrival of “a decent candy counter, like in Westwood. They have cheesecakes and special cookies and all kinds of things.”

Braude told the council that the project would be a “shot in the arm” for downtown and wondered what the first movie might be.

“Rocky 9!” joked Councilman Jeffrey Kellogg, an allusion to the many times the project has been delayed.

City officials began talking about a downtown theater years ago. The city’s 1975 downtown development plan determined that night life would be key to the city’s revival, and a 1986 plan pointed to movie theaters as being vital to night life.

In 1988, after much prodding from the Pine Avenue business community and backers of the nearby mall, the city’s Redevelopment Agency began aggressively courting prospective developers, sending them packets of pretty pictures and future scenarios for Long Beach. They were also given a tour of the rather desolate site on Pine Avenue.

“Some of them never got back to me,” Francis recalled.

In September, developer Janss Corp., a theater operator and the Redevelopment Agency began complex three-way talks. The meetings were held every other day and sometimes lasted until midnight. Talks stalled in late November, when the original movie operator backed out, saying it would not be possible to break even.

There were other hurdles. City officials were reluctant to build parking lots on land that they might want to use eventually for other projects, negotiators said. Developers were nervous about investing a lot of money up front in a project that both sides acknowledge is high risk.

“At times it got pretty discouraging,” Shick said.

Eventually a compromise was reached. The city agreed to improve existing parking lots, including the City Hall lot, and consider building a $6-million lot at State Street. Janss will get a break on its rent: Except for two payments, rent is deferred until the 12th year of the lease, allowing the company to absorb possible losses in the first years of operation, negotiators said.

Santa Monica-based Janss has been involved in similar public partnerships in Santa Monica, Pasadena and Boise, Ida. Company President William Janss said that the Santa Monica project, a promenade that is the keystone to that city’s redevelopment, is already breaking even in its first year and that most space there is rented.

City planners and private developers said such public-private partnerships offer the best hope for reviving urban areas. “In the next ten years, we’re going to see a lot of rejuvenation efforts like these,” Janss predicted.

Tuesday evening, a busload of Long Beach officials and business leaders toured Santa Monica’s promenade.