Cinema

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Edwards Theaters Circuit Inc. will announce plans this week to build a 22-screen cinema and nine-story-high Imax theater at the Howard Hughes Entertainment Center in Westchester.

The theater project is the first retail tenant signed at the center, located next to the San Diego (405) Freeway at Howard Hughes Parkway.

It is also the first project in the city of L.A. for Edwards, which is based in Newport Beach.

Developer Jerry Snyder, managing general partner of the J.H. Snyder Co., said he chose Edwards Theaters in part because “it’s a family company” that shares his company’s vision for the entertainment-retail center.

“This center is going to be a lot of fun,” Snyder said, noting that the design will incorporate a logo of Howard Hughes as a flyboy. “It’s going to be modeled on that period of time when Jane Russell was making films like ‘The Outlaw.’ ”

The Snyder Company will begin construction on the 250,000-square-foot center in early 1998 with completion expected in Spring 1999. Snyder said he has been meeting with neighbors for the past nine months and has their “total support.”

The cinema will occupy 105,000 square feet, while 100,000 square feet has been set aside for retail uses and 45,000 square feet for restaurants. Snyder said he expects to have a bookstore, department store and three sit-down restaurants among the anchor tenants.

The 70-acre Howard Hughes Center currently has two Class-A office buildings and a Spectrum Club gym open on the site.

Edwards Theaters, which operates about 531 screens in California and Idaho, plans to open 164 screens this year and 120 more in 1998.

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