A proposal in front of the Lincolnshire Village Board would demolish six screens at the Regal Lincolnshire Stadium 21 & IMAX to make room for a new apartment complex aimed at Millennials and empty nesters, officials said this week.
Under the plan, the theater would also renovate the 15 screens that remain into a modern movie-going experience, and the landowner would convert the newly available space into a new apartment hub with a large parking garage.
Scott Greenberg —co-principal of ECD Co., which owns the land the Regal stands on —said ground-shifting changes in the entertainment industry had made the giant cineplexes of the 1990s harder to manage today.
“It’s more of a hindrance to them than an asset,” Greenberg said.
Yet the village board has avoided apartment complexes in recent years, shooting down two in 2015 and one in 2014, according to Lincolnshire Mayor Liz Brandt.
“The village has always said ‘No’ to apartments,” Brandt said.
But there may be room to work, she said. The board took its first look at Greenberg’s proposal during their Jan. 11 meeting, gave him some questions to answer and told him to come back when he had more details.
The landowner’s idea calls for Regal to demolish the south wing of its building, erasing six screens but preserving the IMAX theater. The remaining screens would be renovated to offer wider, reclining seats, along with expanded food and alcohol offerings.
The facility’s total capacity would drop from around 3,800 seats to approximately 1,700, but Greenberg said this would make it a more apt competitor to newer AMC screens in nearby suburbs. Regal’s corporate office did not return calls for comment.
Greenberg said he would then convert the empty space into a pair of four-story buildings with 302 apartments inside. A four-story parking garage would house the tenants’ cars, and he said each deck would have its own entrance to the corresponding floor in the apartment buildings.
The intent, Greenberg said, is to attract Millennials wary of home ownership, as well as empty nesters. Greenberg predicted that Lincolnshire’s major corporations — he specified Zebra Technologies, Grainger Industrial Supply and CDW — will be hiring young programmers and engineers soon, and that those new employees will be looking for a place near where they work to live, and spend.
“It helps sow the seeds to help Lincolnshire along in its path to become a mini tech hub,” Greenberg said. “That’s the kind of place that Millennials are attracted to. The whole idea of home ownership is not on their screen. They are willing to spend more on a rental situation than buy, and there’s a lot of good reasons why they feel that way.”
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The parking garage will need 500 to 600 spaces, he said. The entire development would overlook a few trees along the Aptakisic Creek to the south and the CityPark water retention pond on the east.
Brandt said she wanted to get Regal’s demolition and renovation going “sooner rather than later,” and hoped it would be finished in time for this holiday season. The idea, though, gave her pause. Indeed, she said the only reason the trustees were considering it is because the land is part of Aptakisic-Tripp Elementary District 102, and just outside the boundary of Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103, which is building new classrooms this summer to house its growing enrollment.
“That’s the major difference,” Brandt said.
Vickie Walter, spokeswoman for District 102, said the leadership there had started looking at the proposal.
“We will factor it into our five-year future planning process that is taking place over the next few months,” Walter wrote in an email.
The Regal has been looking for additional revenue streams for years: Village Hall created a new liquor license so it could pour drinks for customers, but a short-term agreement for megachurch Willow Creek to hold some of its services there on Sunday mornings ended months ago. Brandt said she would like to see the Regal running optimally in this new environment.
“The whole industry has changed,” Brandt said. “Lincolnshire is one of their better performers, particularly because it has an IMAX, but the need for 21 theaters really isn’t there. Clearly, we would like to see the renovation happen. They are a good sales tax contributor.”
Greenberg and Brandt both said they met again on Jan. 13. After that session, Brandt said she spoke with the landowner about other projects he could set there, instead of multi-family housing.
“(The meeting) was just to explore ‘What if the apartments aren’t approved,'” she said.
Both said they expected Greenberg to have a more detailed proposal in time for the Village Board’s Feb. 8 meeting.
“Now comes the hard work of sitting down and working together,” Greenberg said.
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer