Landmark Cinemas has announced an agreement to move into the former SilverCity property in Windsor.
The Calgary-based movie theatre chain plans to open in the site at Provincial Road and Walker Road in the Fall of 2024.
The property is held by Mikhail Holdings Limited.
Landmark plans to have fully powered luxury recliner seating in all 8 auditoriums and Premiere Seats featuring a heated seat with an adjustable headrest, wider armrests, side table, and coat hook, all wrapped up in a privacy enclosure.
Cineplex announced in January of 2022 that it would not reopen once the Ontario government's COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, shifting its focus to its nearby Cineplex Odeon Devonshire Mall Cinemas location.
Mikhail Holdings has been seeking a tenant for the property since that decision was announced.
Joe Mikhail, Director of Mikhail Holdings, says Landmark saw the value in Windsor and is a major movie theatre operator in Canada.
"They want to upgrade this cinema into one of its premier sites with higher end seating, higher end visual," says Mikhail. "It will be a totally different experience in what you see before and what we have now at the mall."
He says since the closure of the former theatre, there has been vandalism at the site.
Mikhail says the deal with Landmark was one of his hardest deals he has put together.
"We're challenged with the damage to bring hydro back into it right now," says Mikhail. "EnWin Utilities is working with them to try and figure out how to bring it back and once we have restored hydro in there, then they start basically starting from ground up."
SilverCity movie theatre on Walker Road in Windsor, Ont., on Monday, July 12, 2021. (Melanie Borrelli / CTV Windsor)
He says it was a long long journey to get to this point after the closure of SilverCity.
"We thought it was important for the city to not just have one theatre but to have a choice and this brings more life to the centre, it brings more opportunities for the community around it," he says.
Mikhail says Landmark will take over a portion of the former theatre.
"I demolished four theatres at the far end and I'm going to redevelop that into a medical centre," says Mikhail. "So that's going to be a medical centre which will be basically work with the hospital down the road and we are keeping eight theatres next to it."
A subsidiary of Kinepolis Group NV, Belgium, Landmark is Canada's second largest motion picture theatre exhibition company with 36 theatres and 299 screens from BC, throughout Western Canada and Ontario.
— with files from AM800's Rob Hindi