Developer’s Ties Key to Theater Deal

Victor Georgino is far from a household name.

A Burbank real estate broker and developer, he is not listed in any local directory of builders because he has never constructed a commercial project in Ventura County.

He has never served on a city committee, never coached a local Little League team, and only toured Ventura for the first time a couple of years ago.

So what does this guy have that makes city officials willing to hand him millions in taxpayer dollars?

Victor Georgino has connections.

For those who have never heard of him, Georgino, 46, has been picked to build a sprawling $8.2-million movie theater complex and parking structure in downtown Ventura.

His crafty negotiations with taciturn theater chains are expected to pay off this summer when he delivers Century Theatres to downtown.

If city leaders approve the lucrative deal, Georgino will construct a 10-screen movie theater and a separate, 500-space parking garage--projects considered key to fueling the rebirth of the historic downtown business district and increasing sales tax revenue.

For the San Fernando Valley native, the project would mean taking responsibility for the most ambitious--and highest priced--redevelopment project in Ventura history. And it is an opportunity he is eager to grab.

“This is the project for downtown Ventura,” Georgino said. “It is really going to be a catalyst to reinvigorate the downtown.”

Building a downtown movie theater has been a top goal for city leaders, who consider such a facility as Ventura’s best bet at luring out-of-town visitors.

*

Two years ago, the city hired a consultant to find a theater chain willing to operate a multiplex in downtown. The only one interested was American Multi-Cinema of Kansas City, Mo.

But to approach AMC, the city needed a commercial developer who could negotiate a development proposal and entice the theater chain.

Enter Georgino, who cinched a deal with AMC in the 1980s to put a 10-screen movie theater and retail complex in downtown Burbank.

“The only one who expressed interest was AMC,” said Pat Richardson, Ventura’s redevelopment manager. “He was able to bring them to the table.”

Although the city typically prefers to work with local developers, Richardson said no one in the Ventura area was plugged into the film industry like Georgino.

“The theater industry is very small,” he said. “Vic had contacts.”

For several months, Georgino and city officials hammered out a deal to build a 4,000-seat movie theater at Main and Palm streets in downtown Ventura.

Then, suddenly, AMC backed out.

“I was absolutely shocked,” Georgino recalled. “When AMC bailed, I contacted just about everybody there was and nobody wanted to go to Ventura because of Edwards in Camarillo and because Century was going to expand” its current Ventura location.

But during his search, Georgino learned that a former AMC representative whom he had worked with on the Burbank project had moved to Century Theatres in San Francisco.

Eager to hold onto the Ventura deal, Georgino approached his contact at Century, which already operates an eight-screen movie theater off Johnson Drive in eastern Ventura and was planning an eight-screen expansion.

“He was absolutely gracious,” he said. “The final result was, they wanted to keep Ventura as a marketplace.”

In January, Georgino announced a deal with Century to build a massive 45,000-square-foot theater and retail complex at the northwest corner of Main and Chestnut streets in the heart of downtown Ventura.

Under the agreement being negotiated, the city’s Redevelopment Agency would buy the property, raze the existing buildings, and relocate the tenants at a cost of about $3.7 million.

The city would then give the land to Georgino, plus $1.7 million toward construction of a $5.4-million movie theater and retail stores.

Using city money earmarked last year for a parking garage, Georgino would also build a 500-space parking structure on a city-owned lot on Santa Clara Street for about $2.8 million.

If the tandem projects are approved by the City Council this summer, officials estimate construction could begin next spring and be completed by April 1998.

Ventura officials say that Georgino’s ties to the entertainment industry have been instrumental in bringing the project forward. His competitors and Burbank officials who worked with him on the earlier AMC deal described him as a skilled and reliable negotiator.

“He is very competent, a very sharp developer,” said Alan C. Weirick, a Pasadena developer who vied for the contract to build Ventura’s downtown movie theater.

“I can tell you just from the city of Burbank’s standpoint that this theater here is probably one of the more important elements that has created downtown,” said John Ornelas, Burbank’s redevelopment advisor.

“I don’t think downtown would be where it is today if Victor Georgino hadn’t brought his theater in.”

When Georgino approached Burbank officials in the early 1980s with his proposal, the city had just one theater--and it was a drive-in.

Now, there are more than two dozen movie screens, and about 50,000 people visit Burbank’s downtown theaters and restaurants each week, Ornelas said.

“Way back then, we were doing maybe not $100,000 in sales tax revenue,” Ornelas said. “And now, with just that revenue from downtown, we are doing more than $1 million.”

But the deal Georgino struck with Burbank is different than the one under consideration in Ventura.

For one, Burbank already owned the majority of the land on which the theater was built, and the city only had to spend about $1 million to acquire surrounding property for a parking lot.

In Ventura, the cost of acquiring and clearing four properties is expected to cost nearly four times that much, although city officials say that estimate may be high.

*

It is expensive. And it is a risk, city officials acknowledge. But they are confident the project will make money, and are comfortable with the developer they have picked.

“The development game is high risk,” Richardson said. “[Georgino] has been working on this for a year and a half without a paycheck. I think he has been honest and forthright.”

Georgino first entered the real estate business in 1976 as a residential agent. “I was there for two years and I starved,” he said.

He then made the move to industrial real estate, then commercial real estate, and eventually ventured out to start his own business as a developer of retail-entertainment centers. He created Burbank Multi-Cinema in the early 1980s.

Georgino also worked as a consultant for AMC, and helped that company develop multiplex theaters in Century City, Montebello and the City of Industry.

In 1989, three years after the Burbank movie theater was built, Georgino launched an expansion project to add four additional screens, retail stores, restaurants and a parking structure.

In 1993, Georgino sold that theater complex to AMC. He is still collecting from the sale, which was spread out over a five-year payment plan.

About that same time, he and his partner were sued for breach of contract by another real estate broker over commissions tied to the development of the adjacent retail stores and restaurants, court records show.

A judge ruled on the side of the broker, and ordered Georgino to pay her about $251,000. His former partner also was ordered by the court to pay about $451,000.

“It was a business difference,” Georgino said of the case, adding that a settlement is still being negotiated.

In the meantime, Georgino is also working on two other proposed movie theater developments in Southern California, although he declined to say where.

He has not secured loans yet for the Ventura project, and says that he can’t until the City Council approves an operating agreement and lease. But he has two loan brokers interested, and Century Theatres has indicated a commitment to stick with the downtown Ventura project, he said.

And what about the man with the contacts? How committed is he?

“I think my history shows,” Georgino said, “that I won’t back out.”