By Thom Smith
If you had hoped to catch a pre-Oscar screening of Black Swan or The Social Network at the Sunrise Cinemas 8 in Mizner Park, change your plans. The multiplex closed down in mid-January amid a wealth of rumors and misinformation.
This much is true: The cinema is closed. Furnishings and signage are gone, but it is expected to reopen in several months. The new tenant will be the original tenant, AMC.
Claims of broken leases and failure to pay rent by previous operator Frank Theatres are unfounded, Frank President Bruce Frank said.
“We were just a management company in there for a few months,” he said.
Sunrise Cinemas had held the lease for 10 or 12 years. Then last July, Frank Theatres acquired some, but not all, of Sunrise’s assets, including Deerfield Mall, The Gateway in Fort Lauderdale, Plantation Crossroads and Sunrise 11. Mizner was not included, but Frank agreed to run Mizner and some others for Sunrise.
After a falling out between Sunrise and Mizner Park management, the two parties reached an agreement last June, Frank said, that included forgiveness of back rent and a termination of the lease this January.
“All Frank Theatres did was provide interim operation between Sunrise and the landlord to keep it going through Christmas,” Frank said.
“That said, the landlord has told us they have a lease structure to convert the facility to a theater with food service. That is what is expected to go there and the theater operator is expected to make a serious investment to do that.”
The new operator, AMC, will follow the trend long in effect at six premiere screens at Cinemark’s Palace 20 by the Boca Airport, and recently added a few blocks away at Florida Atlantic University’s four-screen boutique Living Room Theaters.
Frank, which operates cinemas in eight states, will pursue an even more ambitious concept at its new Marketplace of Delray project, west of the Turnpike on Atlantic Avenue. Construction is expected to begin this spring with an opening anticipated in late summer or early fall of 2012.
“We’ll have 12 screens, premiere seating and a 16-lane bowling alley,” Frank said, while admitting he has doubts about full-service theaters.
“You can take in a cocktail, you can take in sushi,” he said. “But I’m not sure I’m comfortable with having a waitress coming down the aisle.
“I go to movies for the silence, for the comfort, for what is in front of me, not what is beside me. If you’re having lasagna while I’m having popcorn, I’m not sure if I
would want to go. But we’ll see.” Ú
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