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One year from now, the Alamo Drafthouse Dallas expects to open its doors on Cadiz and Lamar in the Cedars. (Rendering courtesy Bill DiGaetano)[/caption]
According to the Dallas Morning News In May 2012 Bill DiGaetano said he expected to open “four to six” Alamo Drafthouse movie theaters throughout “the entire” Dallas-Fort Worth area, but until now there’s been just the one in Richardson. That will change come mid-2015: This time next year, DiGaetano says, Dallas will have its very own Alamo — a two-story multiplex on the southwest corner of Cadiz Street and S. Lamar Street in the Cedars, between the Dallas Convention Center and the South Side on Lamar.
Yes, you read that correctly: Downtown Dallas, more or less, will once again have its very own movie theater, the first since the 10-house cinema in the West End Marketplace went dark 14 years ago.
Says Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, the Alamo Drafthouse’s arrival in the Cedars “fans the flames of progress” currently being made in downtown Dallas. “And it’s exactly the strategy needed to grow southern Dallas.”
DiGaetano says the Alamo Drafthouse Dallas, which will be developed and owned by Matthews Southwest and operated by DiGaetano’s Two is One, One is None LLC, will have eight screens and seat around 1,000 moviegoers. The eight houses will have the requisite digital projectors augmented with Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound, but a handful will also be outfitted with 35mm projectors in keeping with the Austin-born chain’s reputation for mixing in old and eclectic films among its first-run offerings.
There will also be a second-story bar: the Glass Half Full Taproom, a craft-beer-and-food lounge that will hold 200 and have two patios, one of which will face downtown. DeGaetano says the other outdoor space will have a movie screen and a stage for live music.
“A lot of chains will look at us and go. ‘What are you doing?’” DiGaetano says. “But the demographic within three miles of the Cedars site and three miles of Richardson are identical when it comes to density and average incomes — and there are no theaters. We’re going to be able to pull in this great community in downtown and around downtown.”
The Alamo will replace an empty building and parking lot on S. Lamar, just a few blocks away from where Jack Matthews is currently building a mixed-used project with 280 apartments units, ground-floor retail space and a parking garage on a vacant lot. The vacant building — which briefly housed the Dallas Music Complex in the mid-1990s — will be torn down, but the bricks will be reused for the Alamo construction. Matthews says the site will also have 400 parking spaces.
DiGaetano and Matthews say they began discussing planting an Alamo in the Cedars three years ago, but shelved the plans until a few months ago. It also doesn’t hurt that the Richardson location is doing far better than DiGaetano expected, as in: “We’ve been cash-flowing since month one.” Local businesses have also profited from its success: The Alamo Drafthouse Richardson sells Dude, Sweet Chocolate at its concessions stand, and pours locally made beers (among them Four Corners, Deep Ellum and Community) at the bar.
“When I moved up here three years ago I wasn’t as familiar with the Metroplex as I am now,” DiGaetano says. “But when we looked at the site three years ago, we said ‘It feels like Alamo.’ And we said, ‘Whyisn’t there a theater down there? Why hasn’t anyone taken the leap?”
At the time, though, he didn’t feel like there was enough density in and around downtown to support a multiplex. “But with the apartments they have going up,” that has changed, says DiGaetano.
Downtown Dallas Inc. says there are 8,000 people living inside the Interstate 30 loop, and 40,000 living in the 15 districts surrounding downtown, the Cedars among them. In 2010, there were 6,800 living in the core, and 35,000 people living in the surrounding area. According to Downtown Dallas Inc., there are 4,600 residential units planned in and around downtown.
Source: Dallas Morning News
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