Harkin's Theater about to open

[Patrick]

The parking situation at the new theater sounds workable!
Personally I think this is how all the Bricktown merchants need to handle parking. If you eat a t a restaurant, the merchant needs to validate your parking ticket. That would prevent the whole parking hassle. Anyways, sounds like it's going to be a pretty nice theater. Having the largest theater in the city will be nice. And I like the way Hogan is choosing quality over quantity. Everytime I go to AMC 24 at Quail Springs, it seems like there are a lot of screens, but little substance.

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"Bricktown adds theater

For Dan Harkins, the movie business isn’t just a job - it’s his family legacy.

“This started back in 1933, when my dad bought the first ticket at the first theater he opened,” Harkins said. “I was practically born in the theater. My mom and dad lived in an apartment over the theater until my mom decided raising a newborn wouldn’t be copacetic with running a concession stand.”

Since then, Harkins Theatres has grown to be Arizona’s largest movie chain. The opening of the Bricktown theater marks the Harkins family’s first expansion outside of Arizona, and it features some amenities Harkins says can’t be found at other area theaters.

The new theater will include the chain’s second Cine Capri, a 600-seat auditorium featuring a 70-foot-high screen and 40,000 watts of sound delivered through 150 speakers. The aisles are covered with red carpeting, and the auditorium and screen are adorned with elaborate curtains reminiscent of an old-fashioned grand movie house.

Indeed, it was an actual grand movie house that inspired Bricktown’s Cine Capri. The original Arizona Cine Capri was considered a landmark, Harkins said, and crowds cheered when the theater was renovated in 1988.

But Harkins was only a tenant in the building, built in 1966. In 1998, the owner decided to tear down the property for a new development. Arizonans responded by circulating a petition signed by 272,000 people protesting the theater’s destruction.

“Even with all that, we couldn’t save it,” Harkins said. “The mayor even formed a committee to see what could be done. And I promised Arizonans we would rebuild it someday. And we did rebuild it, opening a new Cine Capri in July 2003.”

Harkins said the large auditorium has been a hit in Arizona, and he thinks it will be just as popular in Oklahoma City.

The theater also will feature what is billed as the “Harkins Ultimate Rocker,” a high-back rocking love seat with a retractable arm. Another first for Oklahoma City will be the theater’s child-care room, where, for the price of a ticket, children ages 3-8 can enjoy crafts, movies and games under the supervision of certified day-care workers while parents enjoy a movie.

“The parents are given a pager, and wrist bands are issued with all the necessary information,” Harkins said. “Once the kids are in, no one else is allowed other than the certified and trained day-care professionals. I tried to go in once, and even I couldn’t do so. Usually, the kids don’t even want to leave.”

Harkins said his ticket prices are competitive with area theaters; $5 for children, $6 for seniors over 60, $6.50 for students and early shows, and $8.50 for adults. Harkins said ticket sales will begin Wednesday on the company’s Web site, www.harkinstheatres.com. The box office will open Friday morning.

Harkins promises he will work with Bricktown merchants and contribute back to the community. The Bricktown theater is already holding a fund-raiser at 6:30 p.m. Thursday for the Children’s Center in Bethany with a special premiere for “Black Cloud,” featuring its writer, director and star, Rick Schroder. Tickets are $150. For more information, call 789-6711.

“The proceeds will go to help fund a new wing - and with us being a week out, we’re already approaching $150,000,” Harkins said. “That’s exciting news, and it comes in as our highest fund-raising charity event in our company’s history.”

Harkins is also quick to dismiss critics who might question whether a downtown theater can attract large crowds so long after the old downtown movie houses closed for good.

“The case can be made easily that we’ll be a destination,” Harkins said. “Thanks to an excellent freeway system in Oklahoma City, we’re at three major highways. And people in the suburbs will want to come here for the experience: to stroll Bricktown, walk to the stadium or to Bass Pro Shops or to any number of restaurants. It’s an experience so unique, it can’t be matched.”

Parking

A visit to the Harkins Bricktown 16 won’t require $6 for parking.

Randy Hogan, developer of the theater and surrounding “Lower Bricktown,” said visitors attending the theater’s opening Oct. 1 will encounter a new validated parking system.

With final details being wrapped up this week, Hogan said plans call for visitors to receive a parking ticket as they enter the new parking area from either Oklahoma Avenue or a new entrance just east of Joe Carter Avenue.

Visitors can validate the parking ticket for 4½ hours of free parking at the theater, or at Toby Keith’s Roadhouse when it opens in spring. Tickets can also be validated for 90 minutes of free parking at other Lower Bricktown eateries, which will include a Sonic, Earl’s Rib Palace, Nothing But Noodles and Marble Slab Creamery.

Should a visit last longer, a flat hourly fee will be charged for time exceeding the validated parking. "

[Patrick]

Here's the second article on this from today's Oklahoman:

"Bricktown adds theater


By Steve Lackmeyer
The Oklahoman

On Oct. 1, the doors open to one of Bricktown’s longest-awaited attractions - a 16-screen theater merchants hope will make the district a seven-day-a-week destination.
“Most of our restaurants are packed on Friday and Saturday nights and at lunch,” said Frank Sims, president of the Bricktown Association. “It should take the peaks and valleys out of our business.”

Projections by Arizona-based Harkins Theatres indicate the $13 million Bricktown Harkins 16 will draw 1.1 million visitors a year.

A theater has been heralded as the answer to the district’s slow days since it was proposed eight years ago. Developer Randy Hogan thinks the complex will be a big boost to the old warehouse district.

Hogan also suggests the eight-year delay, which included much of the theater industry plunging into bankruptcy in 2000, might not have been so bad after all. The Harkins theater has 16 screens instead of the 24 first envisioned by Hogan, but it also features a daycare center and a 600-seat Cine Capri auditorium instead of an IMAX cinema.

“With the industry going through all that, many of the operators went to school on what they did right and what they did wrong,” Hogan said. “They had gone through the stadium-seating phase, and they were doing 24 screens, 30 screens, and that turned out to be too much.”

Hogan said the Harkins Bricktown 16, emphasizes quality over quantity and provide movie patrons with a more intimate setting. Getting a theater back into the development, however, wasn’t easy.

The turnaround year, Hogan said, was 2002 when the city agreed to build a store for Bass Pro Shops and Sonic Restaurants decided to build its new headquarters as part of what is now dubbed “Lower Bricktown.”