Cinema City, a popular theater in Hartford’s South End known for its art films, will close July 22 to make room for a sewer plant expansion, The Hartford Courant reports.
Cinema City will reopen in a wing of the city’s Bow Tie Cinemas theater the next day, the newspaper says on its Web site.
The Metropolitan District Commission, which provides water and sewer services to the Greater Hartford region, is looking to acquire Cinema City’s Brainard Road property, officials at the commission said Monday. Talks between MDC and Bow Tie Cinemas began about three months ago, said Christopher Stone, assistant district counsel for MDC.
MDC would use the land for an expansion of its water pollution control facility, located across the street from the theater, he said. The project would cost roughly $415 million – funded by state and federal grants, low-interest loans and taxpayer money – and take three to five years to complete.
The expansion is needed to help eliminate weather-related sewer overflows to the Connecticut River, Stone said.
The art house is moving from Brainard Road to the Bow Tie Palace 17 and Odyssey Theater at 330 New Park Ave., where it will reopen under the name Cinema City at the Palace. The new Cinema City will feature five screens, stadium seating, a new café, digital stereo sound and more parking. The South End theater has four screens and a smaller parking lot, said Joseph Masher, chief operating officer of Bow Tie Cinemas.
Cinema City opened in 1972 as a commercial theater. As bigger cinemas sprung up nearby, it was converted to an art house theater.
All of the employees at the current facility — 12 part-time workers and one full-time — will be offered jobs at the new cinema, Masher said.
