A national theater chain that aims to make movies fun again (with equal parts etiquette and alcohol) is coming to the Financial District. The Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse has signed a lease for a 40,000-square foot space at 28 Liberty Street, formerly known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza.
The chain is widely hailed for providing fine food and beverages during movies (brought by waiters to cabaret-style tables positioned alongside luxury seats), and offering this service for the price of a regular movie ticket, although food and drink cost extra. But Alamo Drafthouse also slightly notorious for its strictly enforced policy of, “no talking, no texting, and not even looking at your cellular phone.”
The Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters, emphasizes quality food and drink (served at your seat), but also believes that movies and manners go hand in hand.
Tim Lee, who co-founded the company in 1997, in an Austin, Texas warehouse-cum-parking garage, says, “we want to create great experiences by making going to the movies fun again.
The below-ground multiplex at 28 Liberty Street will have ten screens and seating for 600 guests in theaters with 20-foot ceilings. Preliminary plans also call for a bar designed for post-movie conversation that will offer local craft beers.
The Alamo Drafthouse at 28 Liberty will compete directly with the iPic Entertainment multiplex, which offers a similarly luxe moviegoing experience, and opened last autumn in the South Street Seaport.
The new theater at 28 Liberty, which is expected to open in 2018, will be the third Alamo Drafthouse in New York: one opened in Downtown Brooklyn in 2016, and another is slated to debut on Staten Island a few months before the Financial District location.
At the landmarked building, which was sold to Chinese developers Fosun International for $750 million in 2013, the Alamo Drafthouse will not be the only amenity beckoning to the public. In the three underground levels beneath 28 Liberty, Fosun is creating more than 300,000 square feet of retail space. And some 800 feet above, legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer is building out a $30-million public restaurant, bar and event space on the 60th floor of the office tower.