SEQUIM — A movie theater proposed on East Washington Street at Rhodefer Road is on hold at least until the economy recovers and the movie business picks up in the Sequim-Port Angeles market, owner Sun Basin Theatres said.
“With the amount of money to put in this thing, we just can’t pencil it out,” Phil Lassila said of the Sequim proposal. “That’s a lot of tickets. We’re watching the market.”
Things were different in 2005 when he expected to build a 10-screen multiplex in Sequim, which was granted a city building permit. Then, Lasilla expected the new $6 million-plus theater on 8 acres would be completed in 2007 or 2008.
The $6 million-plus, 30,000-square-foot multiplex plan would have had 10 screens plus a party room. The theater was planned to hold nearly 1,200 moviegoers, but the idea faded to black when the economy dove during the latter half of last decade.
Lassila, whose Wenatchee-based Sun Basin owns and operates the Lincoln Theatre in Port Angeles and Deer Park Cinema east of Port Angeles, called the Lincoln “a very weak” sister theater and said business at the five-scree Deer Park cineplex at U.S. Highway 101 and Deer Park Road was “marginally weaker.”
Sun Basins’ business in Wenatchee is much better, he said, with 20 movie screens in two theater venues.
The newest Sun Basins 14-screen cineplex in a remodeled Kmart building in Wenatchee has a VIP lounge serving beer, wine and food to order in plush seating that Lasilla said moviegoers love.
“We do 70 percent of our business in Wenatchee,” said Lasilla, who also owns The Pumpkin Patch and corn mazes in Carlsborg off U.S. Highway 101 and Kitchen-Dick Road.
Lasilla said the company conducted a feasibility study on the Sequim movie theater plan and found “it’s just not there. The whole [North Olympic] Peninsula’s economically weak.”
Besides Port Angeles, the Peninsula has two other movie theaters, two in Port Townsend, plus the region’s only drive-in theater near the junction of state highways 19 and 20 south of Port Townsend.
Lasilla said he was aware of discussion surrounding the city of Sequim’s downtown plan and the strong suggestion from residents that a theater be established in the heart of the small shops district near Washington Street and Sequim Avenue.
The Bank of America Building on South Sequim Avenue at Bell Street, which is up for lease, was a suggested location.
Lasilla questioned the feasibility of that prospect.
“Why don’t we do something like that? It’s tough to say. We need to study that,” he said, adding that bringing in a partner on such a proposal might make it feasible.
“It’s just a tough nut to crack,” he said.
The city of Sequim and Olympic Theatre Arts are working on a partnership to show a monthly classic movie at the theater on North Sequim Avenue to raise money for the live theater group that puts on produces plays and to test the interest in a local movie theater.
The rise of DVD mail sales and streaming video online, such as Netflix, has not had a substantial impact on movie theaters, Lasilla contends.
“People want to go out,” he said.
While the downtown Port Angeles Lincoln theater still uses 35 mm film, Deer Park is an all-digital theater like the rest of the Sun Basins operations.
While the economy has slumped, costs to theaters have gone up.
“Film companies are taking more and more of the bite, and there’s not much left over,” Lasilla said.
Sequim has had movie theaters in its past, with one in the southeast corner of Sequim Village Shopping Center, now the headquarters of the police station.
Another theater, which was partially burned out in a fire, was once located where the Sequim Gazette weekly newspaper is now published on Washington Street.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
