Art House Theater Chain Bailing Out Of Delayed Hollywood Retail Project

By DANNY KING

Staff Reporter

Laemmle Theatres, the West Los Angeles-based art house chain, has pulled out of negotiations with developer CIM Group LLC to be the anchor tenant on a proposed 60,000-square-foot retail development in Hollywood.

The developer has been planning a six-screen, 20,000-square-foot theater on the second floor of a complex spanning Hollywood Boulevard between Cherokee and Whitley avenues. With the exception of Book City and Studio Caf & #233;, the site is boarded up, with plans to raze all the buildings except for the caf & #233; site at the corner of Hollywood and Cherokee.

The theater’s decision to pull out leaves CIM with just one secured tenant for the site, a sushi restaurant, which would go into the 6,000 square-foot space currently occupied by the Studio Caf & #233;.

“It clearly was not an original plan to be at this point in the process, but we’re fairly confident there are some emerging solutions,” said John Given, senior vice president at CIM.

“We just lost confidence that we were able to come to a position where both parties wanted to move forward,” said Laemmle Theatres Director of Development Jay Reisbaum of the deal.

The Community Redevelopment Agency has guaranteed CIM a fixed return on the project, agreeing to kick in up to $400,000 annually if those returns are not met. The CRA would participate in returns above a certain level as well.

In the three years CIM has been pursuing development of the site, 34 movie screens have either opened or are about to open in the area.

“We would have preferred to be the first in Hollywood, not the last,” said Reisbaum, who added that the company’s opening of the Fairfax 3 at Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard last November “helped ease some of the pressure we felt to make a deal in this area.”

Though Given wouldn’t elaborate on future options, the developer, as well as the CRA, are in discussions with an unnamed theater operator to replace Laemmle, according to John McCoy, deputy administrator of operations with the CRA.

“CIM is a couple weeks away from announcing who the new exhibitor is,” said McCoy.