# Civic Matters > Suburban & Other OK Communities > Midwest City/Del City >  Movie theater

## goodfriday

It would be very nice if we had a movie theater in MWC. Do you think we can support one ?

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## kevinpate

Learned something.  I had just assumed any community of your size had a local theater.

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## mmonroe

There were at a time, 3 movie theaters i do believe.  One inside Heritage Park Mall, one in the shopping center behind Heritage Park Mall, and the third escapes me.  The movie theater in Heritage is unoccupied and apart of the mall.  The movie theater behind Heritage Park is now People's Church MWC.  

I would love if all we got was a 3-plex to 5-plex IMAX.  Why IMAX you ask, i'll tell you.  (lol, i'm having too much fun today) 

For the number of regular theaters we have in the vicinity, a movie theater in MWC from a business standpoint doesn't make any sense.  Now, if we specialized in IMAX, (1 IMAX theater in Moore), I believe it would be a hit!  There is a newness factor, a quality factor, an "entertainment option" for Easter OK County, not to mention it would be IMAX!  I doubt people would flock to a regular movie theater, but an IMAX would have pull.

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## RadicalModerate

Didn't there used to be another "Midwest City" theater over in the area of Del City Music?  The "Bomber Theater" or whatever?
And then of course, there was the famous "Sooner Twin Drive-In" . . .

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## Lauri101

3rd Theater was at 15th and Air Depot - years ago behind (west) of where IHOP is.  In the 80's, it was a dollar theater - great place to take pre-teens to meet friends. (And safe then) Not sure what's in there anymore - it's been a furniture/apliance store and a gun range.

I can remember seeing sell-out crowds then, but that was before DVRs, on demand and cheap DVD players.  Agree completely with mmonroe - IMAX might do it, but doubtful anything less.  
I'll stick with waiting a few months personally - I can't ask a theater to pause while I run to the RR.  :Wink:

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## Just the facts

Maybe if the Midwest City Town Center was actually a town center, instead of this:



There is always hope though:

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## Wambo36

There was the Heritage Park 5 in the mall, the Heritage Plaza 3 (I think that was the name) in the shopping center north of the mall and the one at 15th and Air Depot was the Apollo Twin. It would be sweet if the area could support a theatre again but I'm not optimistic.

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## Lauri101

> Maybe if the Midwest City Town Center was actually a town center, instead of this:
> 
> deleted image for space...
> 
> There is always hope though:


JTF - I completely agree - I had hoped the MWC Town Center would be walkable and friendly to pedestrians, but, alas, it is not to be.  Had they left the street-beds intact and spaced the stores around the parking rather than a straight line of big boxes, it would be divine to walk from my house through the entire center.  Now, it feels like playing dodgeball - and I'm the ball!

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## bombermwc

Some of us actually do walk the whole thing. You just have to make an effort to do so. For the amount of development we're looking at, given the land that was purchased, you can't really do a whole lot with big bix outside of what they did. Yeah, you could reorient them, but you'd still have to walk the same distance from one big box to the next. It's not a shopping mall. The frontage property people are where they are because of the visibility on 29th. It's pretty standard...big stuff in back, small stuff out front. 

I've even walked from Target to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.....Firestone to Best Buy, etc. And that's all with a double stroller.

I'd also say that picture, with a totally packed parking lot (and they're still building with the new Dick's and McAllister's...and there's still open plots), the place did and is doing just fine.

If you want walkable, the actual "town center" part on Mid-America has it for you. Small shops in a very walkable area. But that many big box stores are sort of mutually exclusive to the concept of walkability because of their footprint. Either you walk more from the door of one to the other, or you don't. Chances of having people go from Lowe's to a nail shop are pretty low though. I actually feel like they did a pretty good job of making the portions that people might want to walk to, being centered off of Mid-America instead of the whole development. Kolh's ends up as a straggler on that plan, but it puts 90% of the shops within walking distance from the fountain.

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## Just the facts

Even at the low end of the urban housing density they could have gotten about 8,000 people living in the same space, plus all of the retail they have.  Not only would you have a theater, you would have a bunch of other amenities as well.  But you can't do that when you dedicate 75% of the space to parking.

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## bombermwc

Make it a real town center all you want, people still have to park. Make it mixed use, and you increase the number of people that have to park. So where are you magically going to put those people? Surely you don't think they're going to put a garage in there somewhere. How quick you forget that half of the space that was used was already parking for the other businesses/apartments/etc that were there before town center was even a thought.

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## Just the facts

I don't know what to tell you bomber.  I guess you can sit around and try to figure out why you don't have a local theater.  It will be interesting to learn what you come up with.

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## goodfriday

Well it seems to me from reading this thread that our Town Center is the logical place to build the theater. In addition to a theater one coud put in a high tech amusement center for example to make this place a destination. Insure there are some great ideas out there. We should have high speed rail go from here to the downtown hub that's going to be built. In fact, I'm going to start another discussion about MAPS for MWC.

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## Lauri101

> Well said.  The mystery is afoot!  Who stole the MWC movie theater!?!?  And in "the good ole' days" where did people put their cars?  Was it magic?  Devil worship?  Hmmm.....


Shank's mare and shoe leather?

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## mgsports

A good Picture. Some Land available but not big enoth for a Movie Theater. Now if we could take that Picture and o it in the new Sim City that would be good.

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## Just the facts

For the record - the opportunities at Midwest City Town Center have come and gone.  It should have been developed correctly the first time, but instead they just built a large parking lot with big box retailers like every other shopping center in the US, and then for laughs, dropped a park in the middle of the parking lot.  Midwest City should try again but this time actually build a town center, not a shopping center with a Town Center name.  They should redevelope the Heritage Mall site, but actually do it right this time.

The Heritage Mall site could even be easily connected to the regional rail network which could attract visitors from all over metro OKC, or even Tulsa once state-wide rail is reintroduced.  You have a second chance - don't blow it.

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## grandshoemaster

For the record - The town center is the best thing that ever happened to MWC.  The city was somewhat reinventing it's original layout with some changes.  (See link below) And it is a town center.  There are multiple places that you can walk to.  The center area is used for movies, concerts, etc.  Now surrounding the town center is bix box retail and restaurants.  I think it is a good blend of both a town center feel and giving the city the big names that it needs.  And as for a movie theater, i give it less than 5 years.  It may or may not be at the town center.  But I know that the town center is always busy and has went beyond the expectations of the city in regards to revenue.  This is in part to the eastside of the metro being very underserved for too long.  So when we get a theater, I believe it will have the same response.  

Downtown MWC 1940, 2009 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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## Just the facts

grandshoemaster - Sorry, I am not saying MWCTC isn't a shopping center that produces tax revenue and provides good and services, I am saying that it could have accomplished sooooo much more than that.  You might find this video interesting.  You can skip forward to the 11:53 mark to see what Midwest City COULD do (they would be the envy of Oklahoma if they did it).

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## Drake

> For the record - the opportunities at Midwest City Town Center have come and gone.  It should have been developed correctly the first time, but instead they just built a large parking lot with big box retailers like every other shopping center in the US, and then for laughs, dropped a park in the middle of the parking lot.  Midwest City should try again but this time actually build a town center, not a shopping center with a Town Center name.  They should redevelope the Heritage Mall site, but actually do it right this time.
> 
> The Heritage Mall site could even be easily connected to the regional rail network which could attract visitors from all over metro OKC, or even Tulsa once state-wide rail is reintroduced.  You have a second chance - don't blow it.


State-wide rail? 

Hertiage Park Mall?

Good lord.

Who is going to pay for this rail system that nobody will use? People are going to hop a train from somewhere just to come to MWC to shop at this new Town Center? What exactly could be there to draw anybody?

Who is going to redevelope HPM? What retailer would go there? Everything over there has closed and isn't coming back. Circuit City & Pep Poys all made significant investments over there and all died. People stopped going to the mall long before it closed.  This isn't the 70's.

Most of the stuff you put out it isn't ground in economic reality of 2012. No major retailer is going to where they can't be seen from a major road or intersection. 

MWC people can be at Harkins in 15 minutes or in Moore in 25 minutes.  I don't think most people in East OC feel the need for a movie theater.

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## bombermwc

I'm with grandshoemaster. It's always amazing to me how people here decide years later how they think things should have been done a different way to make them "better". 

You say town center isn't walkable? I do it every time i'm there, so i call bull on that one. You do, however, have to get out of your car and use your legs to make it walkable though...not drive from one store to the other. You don't walk any more between the buildinds than you do if you walk around Penn Square. But you don't hear people complaining about that do you? 

And by the way, if you'll notice, most of the frontage lots are businesses that weren't in OKC or even OK until they were in that shopping center. They made an extra effort to attract businesses that weren't already here. Remember how JC Penny left MWC 15 years ago...guess what, they are back, along with Kolhs. Remember how we didn't have a Lowes before? or a Petsmart, sporting goods worth anything, Children's Place (which has great deals all the time), Cheddars, Jack in the Box, etc. You can go down that list and find places that we would never have gotten, had the place not been built. AND, those stores wouldn't have opened another location in OKC had they not started in MWC....ie Old Chicago and Cheddars among others. And guess what, it's working FANTASTICLLY! So gripe all you want, it's doing exactlly what it was designed to do....and it's doing it very well thank you.

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## so1rfan

> You don't walk any more between the buildinds than you do if you walk around Penn Square. But you don't hear people complaining about that do you?


Air conditioned comfort vs 110 degree heat.

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## Just the facts

Bomber - walkable doesn't mean from your car to the store.  Walkable means from your house to the store.

Let's say they built a multi-story parking deck instead of 70 acres of parking, created an interior street grid that the businesses faced instead of the giant parking lot (with all the same stores), and then added residential units above the stores.  How would that negatively impact you?

On the benefit side, you could park in a nice cool dry parking garage instead of a parking lot where you are open to the elements.  Businesses would be oriented so they provide shade on the sidewalk in the summer, or sunshine in the winter, awnings along the interior street grid would protect you from rain/snow, and businesses could have nice display windows.  Plus, since people lived on-site 24/7 more businesses would be open later (maybe even 24 hours) and there would be a better mix of business - plus more of them since the parking lot isn't taking up 70% of the space.

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## Dubya61

> Bomber - walkable doesn't mean from your car to the store.  Walkable means from your house to the store.
> 
> Let's say they built a multi-story parking deck instead of 70 acres of parking, created an interior street grid that the businesses faced instead of the giant parking lot (with all the same stores), and then added residential units above the stores.  How would that negatively impact you?
> 
> On the benefit side, you could park in a nice cool dry parking garage instead of a parking lot where you are open to the elements.  Businesses would be oriented so they provide shade on the sidewalk in the summer, or sunshine in the winter, awnings along the interior street grid would protect you from rain/snow, and businesses could have nice display windows.  Plus, since people lived on-site 24/7 more businesses would be open later (maybe even 24 hours) and there would be a better mix of business - plus more of them since the parking lot isn't taking up 70% of the space.


As always, great points.  I think the biggest seller to developing the way you (and others) recommend is that you can get a LOT more taxes from denser new urbanism design.  The detractor is that the city has to decide if the baseball diamond in the corn field is a good idea.  If you build it, WILL(?) they come.  I'll bet it's quite a leap of faith for Midwest City to take.  Even more so for Choctaw and their planned city center / Walmart.  You're right to degrade it, but I'm sure it feels dangerous to execute for the first time in a small or smallish city.

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## Just the facts

High density is the orginal land use pattern of Oklahoma though, so it isn't new.  The problem in MidWest city is that it was populated AFTER the advent of the automobile so the only thing they know is sprawl.  There are thousands of examples of new urbanism high density developments all over the US that have been built in the last 10 to 15 years.  It's not like this is experiemtal surgery or anything.  In fact, it is the exact opposite - in a medical analogy MWC is still bleeding patients with leeches.

On the economics side you are exactly right.  Whatever tax revenue benefit MWC receives from the MWCTC, it would have been multiplied many times over with an urban design, not only from a higher conentration of sales, but by not having to spend money on sprawl (roads, powerlines, water lines, sewer lines, etc) for the thousands of people who could have called MWCTC home.

This is a picture from Carmel City Center (a northern suburb of Indianapolis).  This could be done in MidWest City.  They built an entire traditional downtown from nothing on only 15 acres.  MWCTC has like 83 acres and the old Heritage Park mall site has probably twice that amount.  They could do something really special.  Through in a rebuild of Air Depot Blvd and property values in Midwest City would go so high many people wouldn't know what to do with the extra money.

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## RadicalModerate

> JTF: Bomber - walkable doesn't mean from your car to the store. Walkable means from your house to the store.


I used to live on one of the streets in the photo at Post #6. (Upper left corner, down from Air Depot).  There were several stores within walking distance.  The problem was that it was easy to buy way more than you could carry home.

I really like your ideas about alternatives to the same-ol' same-ol' massive development.  In the Twin Cities area, there are at least two of these alternatives that I've noticed: One is what they call The Shops at West End and the other is in The Main Street area of Maple Grove.  Both areas have been developed into what I would call Instant Old Main Streets or Outdoor Malls. (Google "Buco di Beppo" Maple Grove and you can wander around virtually to see what I'm talking about) And this in an area where they have weeks and weeks of sub-zero temperatures each year.

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## Just the facts

What is pretty funny, my wife and I were watching Small Soldiers the other night with the kids and she said if we moved to a small town like the one in the movie she would be willing to live a higher density downtown area.  The joke was on her though because the 'small' town in the movie is Orange, CA (part of the greater LA area).

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## Stew

> Bomber - walkable doesn't mean from your car to the store.  Walkable means from your house to the store.
> 
> Let's say they built a multi-story parking deck instead of 70 acres of parking, created an interior street grid that the businesses faced instead of the giant parking lot (with all the same stores), and then added residential units above the stores.  How would that negatively impact you?
> 
> On the benefit side, you could park in a nice cool dry parking garage instead of a parking lot where you are open to the elements.  Businesses would be oriented so they provide shade on the sidewalk in the summer, or sunshine in the winter, awnings along the interior street grid would protect you from rain/snow, and businesses could have nice display windows.  Plus, since people lived on-site 24/7 more businesses would be open later (maybe even 24 hours) and there would be a better mix of business - plus more of them since the parking lot isn't taking up 70% of the space.


Have you ever been to Midwest City?

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## Just the facts

> Have you ever been to Midwest City?


Yes.  Why do you ask?

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## Lauri101

Old Fogiette post alert - Bomber - when I was your age, walkable meant a 20 klick ruckmarch with a 40 pound pack on my back. Pretty easy stuff.
Walkable now is different - and in the not too distant future, will entail a walker and/or chair.  Shrug - it's the nature of the disease.  I'd like to be able to walk - even slowly, from one store to another without feeling as though I'm back in boot camp.  ITA with JTF - a parking garage and set up he described would have utilized the space more efficiently and allowed for even more retail.
Don't misunderstand - I'm thrilled with just having Town Square so close to the house. When Target expands, I'll rarely have to go outside the OSM to get what I need - will save the weekend time for rest rather than driving.  It's all good - MWC benefits from the sales tax and residents benefit from closer retail without driving to OKC.

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## bombermwc

Hey guys, you realize that some of the projects the city is planning for the Original Mile (ie the same area Town Center is in) actually is mixed use? That wasn't the purpose of Town Center. You can call it whatever "center" thing you want, but it's been a shopping center from day 1. It was never intended to be anything other than that. The central area has served as a gathering place for events, but it's mostly just for looks. That's not that uncommon for developments like this....look to Norman for a larger scale. I don't hear the Normanites complaining about mixed use there. And basically every single store in that place was already in Norman somewhere. At least MWC added stores that weren't even in the state yet.

But let's be realistic. MWC is a suburb. It stopped being a walkable city as soon as it expanded beyond the original mile's borders. Developing a SHOPPING CENTER won't change that. Plus it's already done, so why keep harping on it? Until I go to the place and see people get off their lazy butts and walk from one store to the next, the walkability talk is worthless. People don't do it even if it's there as an option. I see people drive from Target to Kohls all the time...some even to Penny's....NEXT DOOR! You tell me how you're going to convince people to walk any distance when they don't even do that. My family is used to walking and we do it every time we are there. We take a 30 minute walk after dinner every night so our kids get used to walking too. So you're preaching to the walking choir here, and even I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

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## Just the facts

Is anyone else reminded of Green Eggs and Ham?

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## RadicalModerate

> Is anyone else reminded of Green Eggs and Ham?


Good call, JT . . .
Somehow this one came to mind first:

=)

(ever read it?  it's the best of all the T. Geisel Classics Illustrated.)

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