By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Candy-dancing: Sundance expansion into a Fannie Mae factory
The long-mooted, Robert Redford-guided Sundance Cinemas announces a Chicago location on the gentrifying West Side, “a deal that would add celebrity glitz to a once-gritty area now brimming with new condos and townhouses,” Crain’s Chicago Business’ Thomas A. Corfman reports, brimming glibly. “Sundance Cinemas LLC is close to signing a letter of intent to open a six- to eight-screen theater in a 266,000-square-foot, multistory development” in a former Fannie Mae chocolate plant. “A Chicago location would be a key step in a planned nationwide rollout of movie theaters featuring the artsy independent films [And who the hell wants to see “artsy” films?] and brainy documentaries [Lord forbid! Brainy documentaries!] that have gained wider popularity thanks in part to Mr. Redford’s non-profit Sundance Film Festival. [The Sundance Institute might laugh at this reductionism.]… Sundance Cinemas was launched last year by Oaktree Capital Management LLC, a Los Angeles investment firm with $30 billion in assets, and Provo, Utah-based Sundance Group LLC, which oversees Mr. Redford’s business interests, including a cable channel, a catalog company and a resort.” Madison, San Francisco and Boston are other targets; in 2001, Business Week described Oaktree as a “vulture fund.” “Sundance Cinemas is looking at many sites all across the country,” says President and CEO Paul Richardson, declining further comment. Mr. Richardson is a former top executive with… Landmark Theatres, the country’s largest art house chain… The developers have been working on the project for nearly two years, after paying $12.2 million for the nearly four-acre site at 1137 W. Jackson Blvd, part of the liquidation of the historic Chicago candy company. Called Metro Center 290, to play up the location along Interstate 290, plans for the project also include a specialty grocery store and a health club… [T]he Near West Side would at first seem an odd choice for Sundance, compared with trendier neighborhoods such as Bucktown or Lincoln Park,” where an earlier incarnation of the business plan failed to materialize in the late 90s. “In Madison, as part of the redevelopment of Hilldale Shopping Center, Sundance is planning a six-screen, 1,200-seat theater that would include a bar, restaurant and shop for Sundance-themed merchandise, says Andrew Stein, vice-president of development at… real estate firm Joseph Freed & Associates LLC, which owns Hilldale. “Sundance is the premier name in independent art films. That’s what we’re banking on,” he says.”