This would be awesome. I knew about G.P. Theatre but not about the movie theater. I know that it would be welcome to have the first run movie theater in the Village!

One question: What would this do to the availability of parking in the Village? The GP Theatre plan feels more "right" for downtown GP. At least to me. Having an 8-screen, first-run movie theater in the Village seems like it would have a huge impact on parking. People could be parking on Kercheval for extended periods of time, denying patrons of other stores convenient parking. Plus, you'd be taking away a large parking area just by building the theater. I also wonder how the residents in the vacinity would feel about a commercial movie theater being located just down the block from them. I think the cultural arts center is the way to go. If a commercial theater *were* to be built, it would be nice if it were an art movie house like the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak or the Maple in Birmingham. Just my $0.02. (Which may not be worth much!)

What are your thoughts? Do you favor one of the proposals more than the other? Why?

Remember there is an 8-screen first run movie theater proposal or a 400-seat live performance theater proposal.

Don't screw up the Village parking,or tie this to gp theater...Go to the land at 7 and Mack Avenue....Emagine could put in 12 screens there!

Ugh! No movie theaters! That would be a nightmare for traffic, parking, as well as an increase in crime. A cultural center would be much, much better for the area.

Ascethics matter, and the Emagine proposal looks like it belongs in a a suburban strip mall. No, no, no! We need to raise the bar on design, not fall to the least common denominator. Grosse Pointe was once known as the standard bearer for good taste. The bland and uninspired Emagine proposal would wash that reputation out completely.

The cultural center is an excellent idea, though the design proposed needs improvement. Is it possible to incorporate in that plan a tasteful, smaller movie theatre, similar to the Maple or Main Art?

While both projects would be great for the Village, after just a cursory review of the proposals, it seems like the Emagine project has the financial and technical knowledge base necessary to pull off such a project. While equally ambitious, the GPT theater proposal seems much more of a dream and based on the assumption that fundraising $24M will be feasible to help fund such a project. Emagine can be open and generating tax dollars for this City by next summer with the GPT project at least 4 years away.

I think the parking comment above from Dean is exactly right, in terms of the impact an 8 screen theater would have on The Village and nearby residential areas. But a cultural center is an excellent idea, or even a small art house movie theater.

The thought of a movie theater close to home is a dream come true. It must be accompanied by a large parking structure preferably with the first two hours free like Birmingham.

I've been to the Emagine theater in Royal Oak twice now and have been impressed. Seems well run. I think having an actual movie theater in the area would be a great idea! I, too, would be worried about parking and increased traffic flow into the city for the residents of Grosse Pointe. In RO they built a small parking structure next to the theater.
I'm not sure if the GP theater would be able to sustain themselves in such a big space. How many people patronage the theater now?

These are both awesome proposals !!!! Can't we do both? Currently the closest theater is the Macomb Mall. It'd be great to keep that business in the Pointes, along with all the resturants that movie/theater goers would support. While 8 screens is small by modern standards, it's still pretty big for the village area. Couldn't they scale the project down a bit and accomplish both objectives with a single solution? Perhaps build one theater to support plays, musicals & concerts, coupled with another theater (or two) to support movies in the same complex .... kinda like the GEM/Century Theaters in Detroit. They do need to address the parking, regardless of what goes in. Maybe they need to revisit the parking garage they were considering during the Krogers remodeling.

A movie theater would be great as long as they could make the parking situation work for everyone. I think it could help bring more consistent foot traffic to the existing stores because movies are running all the time. If movie goers came to the movie a little early, people would window shop which hopefully leads to return visits to the community and purchasing from the stores. I love GP Theater and the productions they perform, but there is no way they could pull the amount of people a movie theater could. For those who do not want the traffic coming to the community please explain how then are we going to keep more stores from closing in the Village? Grosse Pointers can shop there, but at this point that obviously is not enough. A hugh concern for me is that there are not enough things for preteens/teens to do. Seriously, what is there for the kids? Sure, we could join the Hunt Club (which my daughter & I would love) but it's just not affordable to all (or us for that matter). You can only go to the park so often and if you don’t like swimming there really is not much to do (Pier Park). A movie theater would be great for teens & families. At first I was a little concerned about the crime and riff raff hanging out, but I have faith in the GP Police Department not to let that happen!

We need to keep in mind that any movie theater, especially with multiple screens, is a public facility and will draw from a geographic area much wider than just the Pointes. The entire east side of the Detroit metropolitan area is devoid of screens. The Emagine proposal was doubtless made with the entire market in mind. They are quite aware that the relatively tiny Pointes in themselves would not support an eight-screen venue. Those who are raising questions about parking, law enforcement, access, and related issues are right to do so. Those issues were a constant headache at the old Esquire Theater in the Park, and I think it's fair to say the police were happy when it closed.

As much as we want movies here or nearby (and I'm a movie person), let's consider the fact that an installment of the dimensions and impact proposed by Emagine would be a significant departure from the scale of the Village as we know and love it.
The GP Theater proposal seems to be more in line with the role that the Village plays in the life of our community. It's good that there will be public hearings at which all these issues can be sorted out.

The movie theater would by far provide the biggest economic boost to the Village, both in terms of the taxes it would generate as well as the spin off it would create for the surrounding businesses. I could see many of the vacant storefronts filling up as a result of an Emagine theater being built. However this would generate parking needs far more intense than any existing business in the Village, likely requiring the City to rethink their entire parking system. I would imagine that it would be a big bicycle traffic generator too so hopefully any plans would include significant amenties for bicycle parking which would relieve some of the need for auto parking. I agree that the facade isn't that inspiring. Hopefully if selected the theater would create a much more attractive facade. As far as crime concerns, Emagine theaters are very well run establishments and I think this concern will largely be a non-issue. Many Village business already draw a significant amount of people outside of the Pointes without incident.

The performance theater would provide a boost to the Village, but a smaller one than a movie theater. I'm guessing that the GP Theater is a non-profit group so no additional taxes would be generated for the City. Area businesses would benefit, but it would be a much smaller impact than a movie theater.

As many have stated above, the Village will not remain a vital and attractive district without one of these proposals being accepted.

While they are at it - they should close Kercheval on the block of the old Jacobson's building. Brick in the entire street. Make it an out door mall (hottest trend in retail & malls, think smaller Partridge Creek). Big fountain, seating, out door stage for performances- then build parking garage behind the village behind Caribou just like the one behind Jacobson's. This would make it more of a shopping destination, community, and could draw back some retailers. I think the theaters are a great move, along with the mall concept would help revive the shopping area! My .02

Anyone know how big of a space the big empty BOOKSTORE is? Could that house a 400 person theatre without taking away parking?

The genius of an 8 screen theater on St. Clair Street needs to be thought through in careful detail to be fully appreciated. The average Emagine theater, according to the company website, seats 200 customers: at any given time, the envisioned theater will bring around 1,600 paying customer into the area behind Caribou Coffee. Imagine the boon to business that 3,200 or more customers an evening could mean to the City of Grosse Pointe; the parking fees alone on a couple thousand cars a night parking behind Chase Bank will substantially enrich city coffers! Although St. Clair, Kercheval and the surrounding streets are only two lanes wide, trees and lawns can be re-landscaped over time to allow for smoother traffic flow.

Thanks to Emagine, one out of every thirty Grosse Pointe residents (1,600 out of the 46,000 population) will be enjoying first run movies in their theaters at a given time; either that or the theaters will draw from the greater Detroit and Harper Woods areas, bringing new business to the Village. Although it is true that Harper Woods, with a population only about 30% of the Grosse Pointes, had 126 violent crimes and 1,100 property crimes compared to the Grosse Pointes with 50 violent crimes and 709 property crimes (according to 2010 FBI crime statistics), it is probably unfair and unreasonable to simply assume that crime will be “imported” into the Pointes. (continued)

Planned consolidations of police, dispatch and jail facilities will, after all, provide more than enough of the necessary “boots on the ground” to maintain today’s feeling of safety and security. Indeed, given sufficient advance notice, it should be possible to use available state funds to conveniently locate the new consolidated police facility behind Starbucks, so as to be in convenient walking distance of the 8 screen theater!

It would be speculative at best to visualize what the changes to the Grosse Pointe business district would do for property values. Certainly, the more vibrant and, indeed, exciting night life would have a profound effect upon housing located close to the Kercheval. Those houses along St. Clair, Waterloo and Notre Dame would probably see the most dramatic changes and these residents will surely react with the greatest energy and excitement to this opportunity.

This is indeed an inspired proposal. If approved, I sincerely hope that the citizens and voters of Grosse Pointe will reward their elected representatives as they deserve. (On a completely unrelated note, it may be of interest to some readers to note that Lowe’s offers 55 gallon drums of roofing tar for only $661.56, while turkey feathers currently retail online for about $55 a pound.)

I agree with those in favor of the GP Theatre option. We need to realize that GP is not Royal Oak or Birmingham (nor do I want it to be). The emagine theater option will not bring extra business to other Village businesses as some have said where as i feel the GP theater option would. Remember the Woods theater , Esquire, Eastland Mall and Beacon East. They all went out of business because of increased crime and violence at these theaters. Let us stick true to our identity and foster an environment that will bring shoppers to our shopping districts and restaurants and families and young professionals to our community. We don't need a 8 screen movie theater to do that.

This movie theater might actually lure me back to GP. I lived there for ten plus years but moved recently to Birmingham due to the lack of things to do in GP. If it isn't boating/swimming season, quite frankly there isn't much to do in GP. The Village Grille did a nice job of re-configuring their restaurant into a classy sports bar, and that is a nice step in the right direction. I understand people will argue that a movie theater will bring in "non-residents," but if we kept it classy and amped up our police force, this would be a valuable asset to the community. Our kids/grandkids are getting older by the second and will soon be forced with the decision of where they want to raise their families one day. And if GP doesn't start making their city more appealing to the younger generations, then we will continue to see our housing market/businesses suffer because of it. It is quite sad that less than 10% of my graduating high school class still lives in GP, and what's even sadder is that of those people who moved away, no one has any intentions of ever moving back here.

Wasn't this supposed to be the site of a "boutique hotel" not so long ago? What happened to that?

i'm still hoping someone fixes up the shores madrid on mack & 9 mile! great location and decent parking and not a problem for the neighborhood. seems like it wud be cheaper than trying to buy in the grosse pointes.

Something just occurred to me as I read more of the posts. How big would the business impact be if the Grosse Pointe Theater proposal were adopted? They're already doing business at the War Memorial. So wouldn't it just be a shift of an existing business from one venue to another? But the movie theater proposal would bring a completely new business to the community. That would be nice, wouldn't it? I think the best solution would be to find a way for the site to support both needs (theater & movies), but perhaps at a scaled back level. Parking certainly need to be addressed. As far as the police question goes - I have every confidence in the greater GP Police Force(s) to continue protecting us & fight crime.

I strongly recommend that readers follow the link in the story above to the City's website, where the two proposals are available for detailed study (alternatively, you can paste http://www.grossepointecity.org/departments/index.asp?DeptID=8 into your browser).

Please note that the City’s Master Planning process meeting will take place this Monday, April 23, 2012 at 7:00 PM at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. A workshop will also be held at that time "to obtain community input on what citizens would like to see for their City and Village in the future."

Be sure also to provide your comments one way or the other to the City at city@grossepointecity.org. You can also contact or to contact Pete Dame directly at 313-885-5800 or through his email at pjdame@grossepointecity.org.

I'm probably in the minority on this one, but I'm not a fan of full beer, wine, and cocktail service in a neighborhood movie theater.

Neither proposal is the best use of this resource. The Emagine proposal is too similar to the Star Gratiot, which attracts many problems. The GP Theater proposal abandons the GP War Memorial, which provides a theater and banquet facities. Furthermore, as has been recently reported, the movie theater business has declined considerably; making this an investment in a stagnant (at best) industry. Mr. Dame, don't accept either proposal.

I'm split on this. Yes the Village needs to do something but i remember the old Esquire on Jefferson. I saw Coccoon there way back in the day with my mom, cousin and little brother. I was 10 years old at the time. The 40's clinking, weed smoking in the back prompted my mom to complain to management. Long story short, the manager locked the doors so we could run to our car without being killed by the people we complained about. That's my last memory of watching a movie in Grosse Pointe.

I hope Emagine has included a bowling alley too.

I think the Emagine theater would be a nightmare. As nice as it would be to have easy access to first run movies nearby I think the potential issues that would arise outweigh the benefits. I have been up to Birmingham many times. Every time there are large groups of kids from surrounding communities loitering outside the theater causing issues. Not exactly what I would want for my neighborhood.

There's really not much to say other than Grosse Pointe needs the theater to bring NEW LIFE to the area. Stop living in the past and worrying about crime. Most Detroiter's fear crossing over the boarder to GP anyway. GP is a classic traditional community and there comes a time when you have to catch up with the present and future times and I believe a theater (maybe not as large as others) would bring the necessary foot traffic as well as provide a boost to the economy for the surrounding businesses making Grosse Pointe not only a classy place but a place where young professional families would love to settle in bringing energy, youth, and a modern upscale look of family life that would benefit all area's of "The Pointe's"

Does anyone remember the Esquire, Woods and Punch and Judy? Why did they close? Does anyone remember? If the Grosse Pointes couldn't keep one of those establishments open, what makes the developers believe we can do it now? We are a lot older community now and the Park has its own movie. Let the War Memorial sponsor art films on a weekly basis. Give the GP Theater the chance to develop the site.

The Emagine Theatre is just unattractive though. Why not have a better design? Why not raise the bar on good architecture in the Village?

Also, in response to Chad's comments that there has not been an increase in crime in Birmingham, that's just untrue. There were two articles in this weeks' Detroit News about gun violence in Birmingham. One of the articles also described an 18 year old boy loitering around the movie theatre with a loaded M1 rifle. This sounds crazy, but it's true. See the links below.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120423/METRO02/204230338/Birmingham-grapples-crime?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120423/OPINION03/204230335

Birmingham has the money to pay for extra police patrolling their downtown. Does GP City? I want a theatre, but it should be (a) attractive and (b) sized appropriately to meet our needs.

It would be nice to have something to help bring some vitality to the area. And for all of the whiners talking about the crime of LOITERING my god no wonder there is a reputation of GP being an aging community losing its youth. Step up policing if you really feel this would draw more criminal activity. It is an incredibly small downtown area that would not be too hard to step up surveillance on. Get it together people!