Movie Houses Lining Up for Conejo Ticket
In the Conejo Valley’s increasingly crowded movie theater market, the Edwards Theatres chain is betting there is room for at least 12 more screens.
On Monday, the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission is set to review a proposal to build a 12-screen Edwards theater, surrounded by restaurants and shops, at the corner of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Lombard Street.
Two other proposed multiscreen movie sites--one on Westlake Boulevard, the other in Newbury Park--have already won the city’s blessings in recent months. But architect Neal Scribner, who designed the latest project, said Thousand Oaks could use more screens.
“When you look at the number of theaters in Camarillo or even in Simi, we’re way under in terms of the number of screens,” he said. “It’s appropriate to be able to have all the movies in Thousand Oaks so people won’t have to go to Simi Valley.”
The center Scribner has designed, to be called Plaza Nuevo, would cover two vacant lots along Thousand Oaks Boulevard. The 137,000-square-foot center would include a food court, stores and 1,100 parking spaces including an underground parking lot with the theater forming the main building’s second story.
Plaza Nuevo’s location places it just blocks away from the renovated Janss Marketplace, where a nine-screen theater opened in December, bringing the total number of screens in Thousand Oaks to 17. And about one mile east along Thousand Oaks Boulevard, a developer has proposed building a multiplex cinema next to the Civic Arts Plaza on land owned by the city.
Still more Thousand Oaks theaters are in the works. Developer Rick Caruso hopes to open an eight-screen movie complex at the corner of Westlake and Thousand Oaks boulevards--the Thousand Oaks Towne Center--by November as part of a $35-million project. On the city’s western edge, a multiplex is part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s plans for a shopping center near Wendy Drive.
The sheer number of movie houses on the drawing boards--with at least 32 additional screens--has some Thousand Oaks residents wondering if the city can accommodate so many new theaters.
“I do have a concern that we’ll turn into ‘Thousand Theaters,’ ” said Planning Commissioner Linda Parks.
In particular, Parks said she wonders what would happen if competition among the new theaters forced one or more out of business. The city could be stuck with a large, vacant building, useless for any other purpose, she said.
But developers insist the local movie market is underserved.
“There seems to be a huge demand for movies and entertainment right now,” said Caruso, whose shopping center, which would contain a Mann multiplex, was approved in January.
Although the rush to fill the city with movie screens may seem sudden, Plaza Nuevo has been planned for years. Last fall, Scribner accused the city of delaying a public hearing on his project out of fear that it would compete with the proposed multiplex adjacent to City Hall.
City planners, for their part, say the delays were caused by the reluctance of Plaza Nuevo’s developer, Nazarbekian Properties Trust of Beverly Hills, to pay for a required traffic study of the project. Nazarbekian has now paid for the study, and planners have recommended that the project be approved.
Planning Commission Chairman Forrest Frields said the project should be evaluated on its merits, not on whether it might lead to a theater glut.
“I would be concerned, as an operator, with all the screens in town,” he said. But, “I can’t see that it’s my place as a planning commissioner to approve or deny a project based on that. . . . As for the number of screens, I would let the market decide that.”
