New Theaters Could Hurt Businesses

Representatives of Red Hot and Blue, PTA Thrift Shop and Whole Foods market said the new theater will lead to a scarcity of parking.

The planned theater will be built on the site of the Plaza Triple Theatres and will add 40 new parking spots to the lot, but that is not enough, said Red, Hot and Blue owner Jim Groot. "It's a simple issue. There is no parking," he said.

By the end of its development, the theater will be 390 spaces short of fulfilling the town's minimum parking space requirements. The theater is now 202 parking spaces short of the minimum requirements specified in the development ordinance.

The three Village Plaza merchants say they are worried that theater patrons will have to park in their lots because of the lack of parking at the theater.

"The deficit in parking will surely result in serious overflow of the parking issue for the entire Village Plaza Shopping Center," said Whole Foods Store Team Manager George Jones.

Jones said he hopes the council will see that a smaller theater would be more plausible because of the parking problem.

He said that a majority of the plaza's customers depend on automobile transportation and that if parking is unavailable, customers will choose to go somewhere else, which will have a negative impact on the entire shopping center.

Groot said the new theater will offer 1,600 new movie seats. "I don't understand how they propose to handle that traffic," he said.

The town conducted a study on parking availability on weekend evenings in the plaza while considering Eastern Federal's special-use permit application. The study showed that on average only 42 percent of parking spaces in the affected lots are occupied on weekend evenings.

Two planning board members voted against the development because they were concerned about parking and the potential for the theater's parking spilling over into the Whole Foods parking lot.

Council member Mark Kleinschmidt said the council plans to examine the parking issue more thoroughly. "Hopefully we can look at this development and take their concerns into mind," he said.

Kleinschmidt said that no decision on the special-use permit application has been made and that the council will consider Eastern Federal's application at its Nov. 11 meeting.

The town staff is preparing a report on the new development in response to the Village Plaza merchants' concerns, Kleinschmidt said.

"The report will present us with information to help us assess the impact of the new development," Kleinschmidt said.

The town staff asked that a new sidewalk on Elliott Road, 20 park-and-ride spaces and bicycle racks be considered for inclusion in the development.

Groot said the changes will not reduce the lack of parking. "I haven't met anyone who rides a bike to the movies," he said.

Town staff also emphasized the use of the transit system as an alternative to driving.

But Groot said the bus system stops running at night, which prevents evening theater patrons from taking the bus.

Council member Ed Harrison said members are not supposed to express any opinion about the issue. But he said he has a vested interest in the issue because he is someone who goes to the shopping center and the theater by bike as well as by bus.

"It is not clear how other parking spaces owned by other businesses will be dealt with," he said.

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.