iPic Westwood
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
34 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 281 comments
I always had a nice time in that house.
I worked there recently and it was hard for us to break even, we were cutting costs every way we could. It’s sad, really, to see it go down like that.
When I worked the house in the early 1990’s it was a nice moneymaker.
It’s actually all about contract. There have been plans to renovate the place into a dine-in theatre but for the rent the landlord wants it’s not cost-efficient enough to keep the location. The contract goes up within the year.
The Avco most likely is finishing up on their old GCC lease. But back in the day it was about locations availible for film bookings in this market. (Westwood / Hollywood) During Westwood’s run as a top location the AVCO was a important location for GCC. Avco was a nice premiere house with two over flow houses upstairs. I’m talking about it as a tri-plex location. Westwood has changed over the last few years. When the bidding war over the old UA Egyptian Theatre was over and Cineplex Odeon winning the house. That theatre under their operation never made money.
It would be damn near impossible to continue to operate the place at that lease-price. If they average 4,000 patrons a week (an educated guess, which is high if anything), they likely don’t even take in $1.2m in revenue between concessions and their share of the ticket sales.
Not really inticing at that price. Cannot imagine anyone jumping on the lease. AMC’s must run out soon. One day it will probably just close and be another empty shell in Westwood. Sad.
I think I begged before but there must be a picture of the pre-split main auditorium out there somewhere!!
$101,365/mo. – that’s pretty high rent for a 4 screen theatre, not doable.
When General Cinema transitioned from drive-ins to indoor theatres in the 1950s, they made a strategic decision to lease when possible rather than own property because it limited their liability for major repairs to the building. Usually the leases were written in a manner that made the landlord responsible for repairing the roof, making any structural repairs, replacement of heating and air conditioning equipment and maintenance of the parking lots and landscaping. The landlord also carried insurance on the building and in a catastrophic situation like a fire or severe storm damage the landlord repaired the building shell and GCC, being self-insured, repaired the interior build-out as an out-of-pocket capital expense.
The policy of leasing rather than owning proved to be a major element in the downfall of General Cinema. Leases prevented them from shedding the obsolete units with high rents and declining attendance numbers while at the same time they were trying to reconfigure the company with modern expensive stadium seating megaplexes.
Having done the math(40,546sq. ft.x$30.00),the asking price is $1,216,380.
They want $30.00 a square foot. The Avco is 40,546 sqf.
I would imagine the lease on it would be quite high. The profits seem to be less than stellar these days. I’m not really sure who would take it over as it is. My guess is it will slowly fade a away, be demolished, and something else will be built. Westwood is not on the map as a movie destination these days and is slowly turning into Beverly Hills. Now all we have is fond memories of the days that it thrived.
Looks like AMC wants out of the place.
The theatre current seat capacities are: Theatres 1) 409, 2) 425, 3) 328, 4) 551
its on Loopnet for Lease as a theatre or anything else that it could be such as retail
The 1978 photo is when this theatre rocked. GCC had a great theatre back then. I miss those days.
Is AMC dumping the Avco? There is a For Lease sign on it.
Now that the picture loading option is instituted, will someone upload a pic of the pre-split auditorium?
I don’t know about the turning people away part, but I’ll never go back to the AVCO as long as the big auditorium remains twinned. AMC should take a lesson from the Del Mar in Santa Cruz, and restore the big house to its pre-split glory.
Just restore the big auditorium and you’ll be turning people away.
Well everyone, the old Cinemeccanica projectors are a thing of the past for the AVCO Cinemas. I’m very proud to say I was the last person to thread the last three(we converted theatre 4 back to digital in October). It’s very sad to see all of them sitting in booth without a home but AMC is making large steps to revive this beautiful and historic theatre. Hopefully soon, people will be lining up again to see our films!
didnt think who the posting above was from Now i know Its Bill S. use to work with us at Untied Artists right?
Our DM Neal Stolberg had a great crew of managers in his Southern California district. I always enjoyed working the GCC chain.
You tell them BradE41.I worked for GCC in management pretty decent chain in the 80’s when I was there!
Personally, I miss the General Cinema circuit,the AVCO has never fit into the AMC mold. Back in its day, the AVCO was a wonderful theatre and really was a wonderful contemporary multiplex. The AVCO along with the Village, National and Bruin was home to many memorable theatrical engagements. One of my favorite visits was when I went to see THE CAR (James Brolin flick) and was pretty much the only person seeing it while downstairs it overflowed with some new film called STAR WARS. I througly enjoyed THE CAR; to this say I’d rather watch it over STAR WARS. :–)
Besides what Brad posted above and the local parking in the area. And Mann Theatres having to drop the 5 mile film clearances on First Run films after the owners of the Baldwin Theatre sued them. This paved the way for Century City and Santa Monica take their pieces of the pie away from Westwood.