THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506070247
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANE HARPER, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Finding somewhere fun to go in Chesapeake will soon be easier.
A major new theater and family entertainment complex is scheduled to open this summer in the Crossways Center across from Greenbrier Mall on Greenbrier Parkway.
The complex will include 13 theater screens and a ``Fun Scape'' center, featuring a variety of games and play areas under one roof.
The ``Fun Scape'' center will offer virtual reality games; an arcade; video batting and video golf games; two 18-hole miniature golf courses; bumper cars; a children's play area with physical, creative and computer fantasy play games; a daily laser light show; an ``Amazing Clubhouse'' featuring a maze with peepholes, talking tubes, and race games; and a motion-simulator theater that will make participants feel as if they're part of the action.
If all that isn't enough, the complex also will house a food court area, featuring booths from Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Arby's and a Sweet Treats dessert shop. The theater area will have a gourmet cafe serving cappuccino, espresso, baked goods and flavored coffees and teas. There also will be a souvenir and candy shop and seven party rooms available for birthdays, meetings and other events.
``It's a big complex; that's for sure,'' said Rob Del Moro, vice president of marketing for Regal Cinemas Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., the company that is building the 90,000-square-foot facility.
Company officials hope to open it by mid-July, Del Moro said.
The one-of-a-kind complex is the first that the theater chain has built, Del Moro said. Regal Cinemas has similar entertainment centers under construction in Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., he said. Those facilities will open after the one in Chesapeake.
Del Moro said Regal Cinemas chose Chesapeake as the first site for its new family entertainment centers because company officials liked the demographics of the area: a densely populated, family-oriented community with a lot of new families moving to it.
``Our research showed that an area like that would support this type of facility,'' he said.
The theater, which will double the number of movie screens available in Chesapeake, will show first-run movies and will charge the same rate as other area theaters, Del Moro said. The auditoriums will range in size from 100 to 400 seats, with cup holders and extra leg room available in each.
The 16-seat, motion simulator theater will offer films that make the viewers feel as if they're part of the action, Del Moro said.
``As you watch the movie, everything moves around you, including the seats,'' he said. Viewers watching a roller-coaster film, for instance, will feel as if they're really on one.
Fun Scape customers will pay using a ``battery charge'' system. To play, participants will buy a card with a certain number of charges on it. Some games will cost two charges, while others might cost three or four. Tokens will be used to play in the arcade.
The hours have not yet been set, but the Fun Scape center probably will be open from 10 a.m. to midnight, and the theater from about noon to midnight, Del Moro said.
Regal Cinemas is expecting residents from throughout Hampton Roads to visit the facility, he said.
``This is literally one-stop entertainment,'' Del Moro said. ``There is something there for everyone.''
Regal Cinemas is the eighth-largest theater chain in the country with 116 theaters.
Chesapeake and Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce officials said they expect the center to be popular with residents.
``I think it's going to be extremely successful and a great asset to the city,'' said Donald Z. Goldberg, director of economic development for Chesapeake.
Donna Girardot, executive director of Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce's Chesapeake division, said she expects it to be another selling point for the city. by CNB