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| The projected Lansdowne redevelopment |
Citizens of Blah-ttawa no longer have to rely on suburbia
for all their franchise film needs! CBC news
reports
that
Cineplex has
confirmed
that it will bring a ten-screen multiplex to downtown Ottawa at Lansdowne Park.
The ever-controversial Lansdowne redevelopment long had plans to include a
movie theatre, but they were put in limbo when Empire Theatres exited the movie
biz and left the developing site without an owner. The site was caught in the
midst of a
kerfuffle when the Empire’s other vacated location at the World
Exchange was set to close despite the best efforts from new owner Landmark
Cinemas. (The battle between cinema locations largely had to do with questions
of exhibiting films in such close proximity.) The closure of the World Exchange
at the question mark of the Lansdowne site left downtown Ottawa without a
multiscreen theatre, although the city’s two single screen venues,
The ByTowne
and
The Mayfair, kept films a flowin’ for cinephiles during the drought and
will continue to do so since their focus on independent, international, and
alternative cinema (plus lower admission fees for loyal members) allowed them
to exist alongside departed multiscreen venues like WE and the defunct Rideau
Centre theatre.
The new Cineplex site, however, will see a significant
improvement over the crumbling World Exchange, as Cineplex plans to bring state
of the art Ultra AVX to the downtown core. Three of Lansdowne’s ten screens
will be VIP screens, which offers films at a premium cost (a VIP movie at the
Varsityin Toronto runs at a whopping twenty bucks a ticket) and lets filmgoers
enjoy service in an intimate and licensed screening room whose 19+ age limit
eliminates the pesky nuisance of children. I’ve only done the VIP treatment once
and don’t find it an experience significant enough to merit the extra cost (the
rooms have much smaller screens), but I did enjoy the bougie novelty of
splitting a bottle of wine at the movies at one in the afternoon.
How do you feel about
these plans, local filmgoers?
