The theater chain opened three theaters last year and will be acquiring two Crown Theaters March 2. "Our main office recently located to the city of Chicago. I think it is just something that the owners have decided to focus on," spokesperson Clair Malo says.
The 18-screen theater with 4,200 seats, to be constructed in the South Loop, will be the largest theater Kerasotes has built. The project, in the Roosevelt Collection development, is expected to open at the end of the year in time for the holidays. "We feel that this is a very underserved area. The location just looks like a perfect place, especially with the development that is going in around it," Malo says.
Construction is expected to begin this summer on a theater at the intersection of 79th Street and Harlem Avenue, in Bridgeview. The cost for the new projects averages about $1 million per screen, which includes the cost of the construction and land acquisition, Malo says.
A 14-screen theater is scheduled to open this summer at the intersection of Central and Grand avenues, on Chicago's west side. In November, a 12-screen theater opened in Niles and a 14-screen theater opened in Cicero, Malo says. Last summer, Kerasotes also opened a 16-screen theater in Naperville. Kerasotes will also acquire two movie theaters in the Chicago area and 11 theaters, with 125 screens, in Colorado on March 2. The two acquisitions in the Chicagoland area are the Crown Theaters Glen 10, a 10-screen theater in Glenview, and the Crown Village Crossing 18, an 18-screen theater in Skokie. "They are superb builds, very high-performing locations and they fit in well with our corporate philosophy," Malo says. Kerasotes is not planning major renovations on the theaters, which are "relatively new locations," she says.
The movie theater chain was started in 1909 with a movie theater in Springfield, IL, opened by Gus Kerasotes. The business is the nation's sixth largest movie theater chain with 94 theaters, with 838 screens, in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Colorado.
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