20-Screen Theater Complex Planned for Warner Center

Pacific Theatres Corp. said Monday it plans to build what will be the largest movie theater complex in Los Angeles County in Woodland Hills.

The Los Angeles-based company said it hopes to break ground on the 20-screen theater complex in a few months when it expects to have the necessary permits, and will try to open sometime between Thanksgiving, 1995, and the end of that year.

Larry Friedman, the Los Angeles city planner assigned to Warner Center, where the project will be located, said it is conceivable that the permit process could allow for construction that soon.

“It’s the kind of project that would probably be appropriate within the Warner Center area,” Friedman said.

The Warner Center Specific Plan has established pre-approved design plans that allow for the construction of high density projects in the area, he said.

The traffic plan for the project is now under review by the city’s Department of Transportation, Friedman said. It is the first step before the project and parking plans are submitted to the city’s Planning and Building and Safety departments, he said.

An environmental impact report was prepared for the site in 1993, when West Valley Partnership, composed of CenterMark Properties and heirs of the Warner family, submitted a proposal to build a 355,000-square-foot mixed use project, said John Lyda, the development director for CenterMark Properties.

Lyda said the partnership is currently “in negotiations” with Pacific Theatres and he expected that the two sides would reach a lease agreement.

The proposed theaters would be located at the corner of Victory and Topanga Canyon boulevards. CenterMark Properties also owns the Topanga Plaza shopping center across the street.

If approved without changes, the theater complex will include 4,500 seats and 1,500 ground-level parking spaces. The theaters will encompass about 70,000 square feet.

A three-screen theater owned by CenterMark next to the site, operated by Pacific Theatres, will probably be converted to retail use, said Dan Chernow, vice president and general manager of Pacific Theatres.

Chernow said the new theater complex would cost in the multimillion-dollar range, but declined to be more specific. “This is the most ambitious project we’ve ever been involved with,” he said.

Pacific Theatres is also considering including a motion-simulation theater at one of the theaters in the complex, said Milton Moritz, the company’s vice-president of advertising.