Olney Cinema likely to close by year’s end

Plans for renovating Olney Town Center do not include movie theater

‘‘I have a contract until the end of the year and I plan to live up to it,” he said.

Huang says the theaters will likely continue operating through the summer, but is unsure after that.

‘‘After the summer, it may make better business sense just to close the theater and continue to pay the rent, if my lease will let me do that,” he said.

Before Carl M. Freeman Companies purchased the Olney Town Center retail center in 2004, it was owned by a New Jersey-based company. Huang said he spent a great deal of time negotiating a plan with the previous owner that would have involved moving Safeway to the Olney Town Center and building a new free-standing theater complex on the current Safeway property, but the deal did not materialize.

Mike Reilly, vice president and general manage of Carl M. Freeman Companies Commercial Real Estate, confirmed that the movie theater lease expires in December.

‘‘At this point, we would love it if Paul Huang would continue to operate the theater for the next 18 to 24 months,” he said. ‘‘It generates good traffic and it is a nice use for the community.”

Reilly said Freeman has asked Huang to make an offer for a reduced rent to continue operating the theater.

‘‘Right now, the ball is in their court,” he said.

Huang said he would discuss the feasibility with his company officials.

‘‘My problem is not next year, it is now,” he said. ‘‘If they would restructure my rent for the remainder of this year and 2009, I would consider it.”

Huang said a significant reduction in his rent would allow him to do some minor improvements to the theaters.

Huang admits the theatre is in disrepair.

‘‘It’s not that we didn’t want to make it better, it is that we couldn’t,” he added. ‘‘Now, we’re just trying to operate as best we can. I really didn’t want things to happen like this, but the movie industry has not been so good the last few years.”

Huang said the company decided to close the Olney 9 Cinemas and allocate resources to other ventures, including its Kentlands Stadium 8 Theaters.

Huang, who grew up in Olney, said his family opened the Olney 9 Cinemas 20 years ago.

‘‘The Olney community has just been awesome, but right now, times are tough,” he said. ‘‘We’re losing money.”

Reilly said Freeman is also talking with a company that takes over distressed theater sites.

‘‘It would be a joint venture with us as an owner and them managing it, but it would take a significant amount of money to bring the operation up to something we would be proud of and they would be proud of,” he said. ‘‘We’d have to find the perfect balance, and that might be difficult since it would only be short-term.”

Reilly said that Freeman expects to redevelop the Olney Town Center in late 2010 or early 2011, and current plans do not include a movie theater.

Reilly said that today’s standard theater complexes feature 18 to 20 theaters with stadium seating, requiring 50,000 to 75,000 square feet.

‘‘This site is just not conducive for a modern theater operation,” he said. ‘‘We’d love to see an eight- to 12-screen theater in there, but the fact is those operations don’t exist because they just can’t compete in today’s market.”

Many Olney residents will be sad to see the Olney 9 Cinemas go, especially the teenagers in the community who say they do not have a lot of recreation options.

‘‘For the teenagers, especially the middle-schoolers who don’t drive, the movie theatres are the only gig in town,” said Jimena Ryan, executive director of Project Change, an organization that focuses on creating positive opportunities for teenagers in the Olney area. ‘‘This is going to be quite a blow to the Olney youth.”

Virginia Mauk, executive director of the Olney Chamber of Commerce, said the movie theaters help bring traffic to other local businesses.

‘‘If the theater closes, I would hate to see it adversely affect the other businesses in the shopping center,” she said.