The Alamo Drafthouse, which opened up downtown in the warehouse district five years ago, is one of the city's few successful smaller cinema houses, serving up movies, beer and dinner. Owner Tim League, who owns Alamo with his wife Karrie, tells GlobeSt.com he saw real opportunity in the Village Cinema.

"Business has been good at the Alamo downtown and we saw real potential on the north side of town," League says. "People generally don't come downtown these days because of the parking situation, and we recognized that we had a lot of people on the north side of downtown that we weren't reaching with our downtown location."

The Alamo Drafthouse downtown is a 7,000-sf converted parking garage. The 17,000-sf Village Cinema, which is owned by Village Property Management Group, will require far less work. League intends to put in a kitchen, add Dolby sound and revamp the seating. He declines to put a price on his efforts, but says the new venue will be open in late June. It will be known as Alamo Drafthouse North at the Village.

The Village will continue to operate as a first-run theater on three screens and one screen will rotate calendar films, eclectic programming and local films. The theater also will be available for parties, meetings and special events during off-hours.

The Village Cinema property is owned by Regal Cinemas. Lease negotiations had started six months ago when Regal announced it would close Village Cinema. Broker Danny Roth with Southwest Strategies has represented the Leagues in the transaction.