CLIENT OBJECTIVE

Develop a movie theater and retail tenant building to complement the character of downtown Holland’s Eighth Street. The main tenant would be a movie theater, then there would also be a first floor restaurant tenant and (3) smaller retail tenant spaces.

Create a downtown “boutique” theater, with (7) or (8) screens and (500) luxury seats, uniquely different from large movie theater chains. Each auditorium would be intimate in size and tapered in shape.

PD SOLUTION

The Paradigm Design team designed the building with exterior finishes of brick and cast stone to conjoin with the character of downtown. We studied the building’s façade and section such that it can accommodate a possible future third floor. In order to achieve this for the movie theater, we set the second floor of the movie theater on top of 4’ of foam. This allowed us to create the risers/tiers in each theater stepping down to the movie screen. This will give the Owner/Developer the flexibility to remove the foam in the future and put in the possible future third floor. The façade design also accounts for false windows at the proper sill height for this future third floor.

The Paradigm Design team took an innovative approach to help think “outside-the-box” from a traditional movie theater layout. We used an internal ‘design charette’ to general new ideas for the movie theater floor plan. From this design exercise, we came up with a unique floor plan that satisfied the tenant’s desire for intimate and tapered shaped auditoriums. The final design includes (11) auditoriums (one of which is a Kid’s Play theater) with 472 total fixed seats and 22 total barrier free seats. There are concessions on each floor, and a kitchen and restaurant on the second floor. We utilized a large curtainwall on the front elevation to maximize visibility into the restaurant and the escalators connecting the first and second floor. We also put a walk-up window on the front elevation for concession sales to help maximize street presence and help draw customers in.