Hoyts bets $50m on city rebuild
After a five-year search, Hoyts Cinemas has enough confidence in the rebuild to lease a new home in central Christchurch.
The cinema chain announced this week it would lease a $50 million new seven-screen multiplex on the corner of Colombo, Lichfield and Tuam streets set to open in May 2018.
Hoyts New Zealand general manager Matthew Garelli said the development was a ‘‘no brainer’’ once the city centre rebuild started to take shape.
‘‘We have been looking at the region ever since the quakes, but over the last couple of years it has become a bit easier to understand what the vision for the CBD was going to look like,’’ he said. ‘‘This was about understanding where the action was going to be. That was hard to understand four years ago.
‘‘Once we knew that the bus interchange was going to be a hub of activity, it was a bit of a nobrainer.’’
Managing director of real estate firm Savills, Jonathan Lyttle, said there would be 15,000 workers in the city centre by the end of next year. He pointed to developments like the justice and emergency precinct, offices for Westpac, ANZ and BNZ, The Crossing and Ngai Tahu’s King Edwards Barracks project.
‘‘That critical mass means better offerings in a smaller area,’’ he said. ’’This development will help people see that this is not just going to be a business district.’’
The Hoyts development will not include parking, but Lyttle said there were about 2000 parking spaces within 300 metres of the site.
The new cinema will feature two Extreme Screens and two Lux auditoriums, which include food and drinks service from your seat. The Lux service was previously only available in Auckland and Hamilton. Every seat in the new cinema will be a recliner.
The old, quake-damaged central-city Hoyts complex, which had eight screens, and Christchurch’s old railway station on Moorhouse Ave was demolished four years ago.
Before the earthquakes, the central city had 21 cinema screens. Now, there are four screens, with two more planned in the Arts Centre and seven at the new Hoyts.
Construction is due to begin on the Crown-owned site early next year and will be finished by May 2018.
Alices arthouse cinema owner Jeremy Stewart welcomed the development.
‘‘The more the merrier,’’ he said. ’’I think it is great because it will bring more people to the city centre. The city still does not have enough cinema screens. There is still a gap.’’