Cinemas Westwood
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
36 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 288 comments
I would think the Avco would be their only option is Westwood if they are not building from the ground up. I wonder if they are negotiating to take over the Mann in Westlake Village.
LA Times article talks about Cinépolis in talks to run a Westwood location. Wonder if that means they’ll renovate (and further split) AVCO, which seems the likeliest. I found their Del Mar location to be disastrous (http://bit.ly/p2oST0), but I guess it’s better than the theater turning into condos.
Here’s the full LA Times piece: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-cinepolis-20111025,0,6531690.story
Thanks Neal for the real info. It was Great working for your District back then!
It’s been interesting reading everyone’s comments. I worked for GCC from 1980 till 2002 when AMC took over the chain.
I can’t possible explain all of the complex issues that faced the Avco and the rest of the movie exhibition industry. But I’ll throw out some random thoughts…
You have to remember that when a theatre like the Avco was in it’s prime there was no such thing as video or even cable tv. Westwood, Hollywood, and New York, were where major films were platformed prior to release. Movies played for 6 months or more in those days. Now they are on DVD in 6 or 8 weeks. Many people didn’t even have color TVs when Star Wars was released in 1977.
The Avco was the first THX Theatre in the world.
What ultimately made us, GCC, decide to split the big auditorium was money. AMC opened the Century City with free parking. Santa Monica wasn’t even a film zone and then grew 3 different exhibitors. Out Regional Vice President at the time recommended against building in Santa Monica because he didn’t believe the theatre would pull in patrons because it was alongside the ocean with zero population…
If the Avco was making money we never would have decided to split the big auditorium. Plus we were being pressured by a couple of film distributors to give them another outlet for their movies beside our competitors in Westwood.
Leasing vs purchasing was always a business decision. It about “Return on Investment”. If you put 20 milllion dollars in to a theatre project that makes only $300,000 you aren’t even making 2% on your money.
The Avco did a little over 600,000 patrons in it’s heyday. And I can assure you it was profitable as a fourplex.
I haven’t been in the theatre business since 2002 but I can tell you that the Avco initially had a 20 year lease with two 20 year optional extensions. I don’t recall the lease rate but it never was a cheap location to operate. But ultimately it was a combination of surrounding locations being built, the Distribvutors changing the way they released film, and the high cost of parking in Westwood, that compromised the location and turned it in to just another theatre. ADA was another factor that was a major cost challenge.
The building never lent itself to stadium seating upgrade.
In the early 90s GC Theatres spun off from GCC. GCC had grown to be a corporate giant with many divisions beside theatres. When it came time for money for upgrades the theatre division never got cash because there was a better return in the other businesses such as making and selling school books or bottling soft drinks.
When the theatre division went out on it’s own we had to sign a deal to keep our leases. Basically we guaranteed we would pay them no matter what. Many theatre companies walked away from leases but we couldn’t. And I recall succinctly that the GCC Hollywood Galaxy and the GCC Beverly Connection had annual leases in excess of 2 million dollars a year…
I’m gonna run… I’ll organize my thoughts and write more in the future.
It’s nice to see people that still take an interest in the great days of movies and theatres.
Neal Stolberg
I would say office space. The projectionists use to park in the Westwood Memorial Park behind the theatre. Since they would not give us a discount on parking there.
The AVCO really lost any lustre it had when they split the large theatre. The 80’s are when all the Westwood theatres thrived. Once Century City and Santa Monica took off the theatres in WW had drops, but with the Landmark 12, the newer Century City AMC and the Grove all doing well WW really took a severe nosedive. A resurgence for WW seems unlikely in the near future. Unless the owner give some kind of break, the AVCO seems nearing its end. That property is not great for retail. My guess either an office building or Apartments will be built there in the future.
It will no doubt join the National. Too bad, but it is an outdated house for today.
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.