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Not All News Is Bad on Economic Front : * Plans for an 18-Screen Theater, UCI Research Funds Are Hopeful Signs of Growth

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It is heartening to see that there are still optimists around on the economic front, people who find promising signs in the local economy amid the financial woes of the recession.

Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. fits the bill with its proposal to build an 18-screen cinema complex at the El Toro Y, the confluence of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways. The complex will be the largest movie center in Orange County, at least for now. The developer of the Foothill Ranch Towne Centre about five miles away said it hoped to install a 24-screen complex some day.

One real estate analyst said the demand for theaters is high in the county because it’s an affluent area that is still growing. James Edwards Sr., the 86-year-old founder of Orange County’s largest movie theater chain, agreed that there is growth ahead, especially in South County. Edwards has seen his share of ups and downs in the county’s economy since he opened his first theater in 1930, so his views are good news these days, when the signs of growth are sometimes hard to spot.

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Indeed, the announcement of the planned theaters, which will be built in the Irvine Spectrum office park, came only a day after twin doses of bad news: Irvine-based Builders Emporium will close all 82 of its California stores and lay off nearly 4,000 workers; and the automobile company Mazda Motor of America Inc. is cutting 175 workers, including 140 in Irvine, where it is based.

But there was a ray of hope from UC Irvine, which has been forced to cut budgets and personnel in the past few years. The university announced that in the year that ended June 30 it raked in a record $103.9 million in research contracts and grants from a wide variety of government and private industry sources.

The amount surprised even university officials, who realized that tough economic times dry up the wells that produce grants. But casting the net wider paid dividends, as the university managed to gather more grants, though for smaller average amounts. The research money is especially welcome, since it can lead companies to set up shop near a university to take advantage of scientific progress.

The county obviously is not out of the economic woods yet. The July unemployment rate was 7.4%, a big jump over the July, 1992, rate of 6.7%.

Still, the planned movie theaters and the UCI research money, along with an improvement in home sales and pickups in economic activity by some other county firms, were hopeful signs in a summer of mixed economic news.

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