By Karen Welch — Senior Content Producer
Cinemark Holdings will renovate its Hollywood 16 theater in Amarillo with the installation of “luxury lounger” recliners in all auditoriums.
The company continues to slowly dribble out details of its plans to upgrade the theater at Interstate 27 and Loop 335, which will include sales of wine and beer, if the company’s permit application is approved by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
Cinemark divulged Wednesday that its renovation plans include installation of the electric-powered, oversized loungers with footrests and cup holders.
Work on the project will begin in June and be completed in October.
Some theaters will remain open while others are closed and renovated, spokesman Frank Gonzales said.
“As one auditorium is finished, they’ll open that one up and move to another,” he said. “Anywhere from two to four to two to five will be closed at any one time.”
Cinemark had 516 theaters with 5,840 screens in the United States and Latin America in operation as of March 31.
A 2015 investor presentation showed the company had loungers in 388 auditoriums as of December 2015. Cinemark projected that number would increase to 900 auditoriums – or about 20 percent of its total screens – by the end of this year.
Cinemark subsidiary CNMK Texas Properties, a limited liability company that does business as Cinemark Hollywood 16, has initiated the process to obtain a wine and beer retail permit and late-hours alcohol sales license, according to Lorena Barnett, a license and permit specialist with the Amarillo office of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
Gonzales referred Panhandle PBS to another spokesman for details about the company’s alcohol sales plans.
A wine and beer retailer’s permit authorizes the holder to sell beer, ale, malt liquor and wine for both on- and off-premises consumption. The late-hours license allows the permit holder to sell and serve beer and wine between the hours of 1 and 2 a.m. on Sunday and between midnight and 2 a.m. on any other day, the TABC website said.
The Cinemark Theater has been operating since 1998. It opened as a Starplex Hollywood 16 in February of that year and was purchased by Cinemark a month later, according to media reports at the time. Building permits then placed the construction cost at roughly $10.5 million.
Karen Welch is a senior content producer for Panhandle PBS. She can be contacted at Karen.Welch@actx.edu, at @KWelch806 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/karensmithwelch on Facebook.
