Magic Johnson Multiplex Set for Carson

Magic Johnson Theatres will build a second multiplex cinema in the Los Angeles area, a 14-screen, $20-million complex in the city of Carson, according to company and city officials.

The 70,000-square-foot project will be the only indoor movie theater in Carson, where company founder and former Los Angeles Laker basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson has supported efforts to build a stadium for professional football.

“This project will not only strengthen Carson financially by increasing revenues, it will encompass youth, education and community programs that will operate in cooperation with the theater,” Johnson said in a statement.

The theater complex--which will be located between a JCPenney department store and an Ikea furniture outlet at the Southbay Pavilion--will be financed in part with $5 million in loan subsidies from the city’s Redevelopment Agency.

Carson estimates it will receive $155,000 a year in sales and property taxes directly from the theaters. Officials say they expect at least an additional $180,000 in sales taxes to be generated from theatergoers patronizing stores at the Southbay Pavilion.

Municipal leaders have tried for several years to attract a movie theater complex to the city of approximately 97,000 residents, according to Patrick Brown, Carson’s director of community development. Carson has a drive-in theater, but its last indoor cinema closed in the 1970s, he said.

“This is just one more way we are looking toward creating a vital synergy between community support and economic development,” said Carson Mayor Peter Fajardo.

Construction on the theater, which will include seats for up to 3,450 people, is expected to start this fall. Completion is scheduled by March 1999.

Magic Johnson Theatres, which opened its first multiplex in 1995 at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles, also has cinemas in Atlanta and Houston.