iPic Westwood
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
10840 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90024
35 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 283 comments
The AVCO really lost any lustre it had when they split the large theatre. The 80’s are when all the Westwood theatres thrived. Once Century City and Santa Monica took off the theatres in WW had drops, but with the Landmark 12, the newer Century City AMC and the Grove all doing well WW really took a severe nosedive. A resurgence for WW seems unlikely in the near future. Unless the owner give some kind of break, the AVCO seems nearing its end. That property is not great for retail. My guess either an office building or Apartments will be built there in the future.
It will no doubt join the National. Too bad, but it is an outdated house for today.
I always had a nice time in that house.
I worked there recently and it was hard for us to break even, we were cutting costs every way we could. It’s sad, really, to see it go down like that.
When I worked the house in the early 1990’s it was a nice moneymaker.
It’s actually all about contract. There have been plans to renovate the place into a dine-in theatre but for the rent the landlord wants it’s not cost-efficient enough to keep the location. The contract goes up within the year.
The Avco most likely is finishing up on their old GCC lease. But back in the day it was about locations availible for film bookings in this market. (Westwood / Hollywood) During Westwood’s run as a top location the AVCO was a important location for GCC. Avco was a nice premiere house with two over flow houses upstairs. I’m talking about it as a tri-plex location. Westwood has changed over the last few years. When the bidding war over the old UA Egyptian Theatre was over and Cineplex Odeon winning the house. That theatre under their operation never made money.
It would be damn near impossible to continue to operate the place at that lease-price. If they average 4,000 patrons a week (an educated guess, which is high if anything), they likely don’t even take in $1.2m in revenue between concessions and their share of the ticket sales.
Not really inticing at that price. Cannot imagine anyone jumping on the lease. AMC’s must run out soon. One day it will probably just close and be another empty shell in Westwood. Sad.
I think I begged before but there must be a picture of the pre-split main auditorium out there somewhere!!
$101,365/mo. – that’s pretty high rent for a 4 screen theatre, not doable.
When General Cinema transitioned from drive-ins to indoor theatres in the 1950s, they made a strategic decision to lease when possible rather than own property because it limited their liability for major repairs to the building. Usually the leases were written in a manner that made the landlord responsible for repairing the roof, making any structural repairs, replacement of heating and air conditioning equipment and maintenance of the parking lots and landscaping. The landlord also carried insurance on the building and in a catastrophic situation like a fire or severe storm damage the landlord repaired the building shell and GCC, being self-insured, repaired the interior build-out as an out-of-pocket capital expense.
The policy of leasing rather than owning proved to be a major element in the downfall of General Cinema. Leases prevented them from shedding the obsolete units with high rents and declining attendance numbers while at the same time they were trying to reconfigure the company with modern expensive stadium seating megaplexes.
Having done the math(40,546sq. ft.x$30.00),the asking price is $1,216,380.
They want $30.00 a square foot. The Avco is 40,546 sqf.
I would imagine the lease on it would be quite high. The profits seem to be less than stellar these days. I’m not really sure who would take it over as it is. My guess is it will slowly fade a away, be demolished, and something else will be built. Westwood is not on the map as a movie destination these days and is slowly turning into Beverly Hills. Now all we have is fond memories of the days that it thrived.
Looks like AMC wants out of the place.
The theatre current seat capacities are: Theatres 1) 409, 2) 425, 3) 328, 4) 551
its on Loopnet for Lease as a theatre or anything else that it could be such as retail
The 1978 photo is when this theatre rocked. GCC had a great theatre back then. I miss those days.
Is AMC dumping the Avco? There is a For Lease sign on it.
Now that the picture loading option is instituted, will someone upload a pic of the pre-split auditorium?
I don’t know about the turning people away part, but I’ll never go back to the AVCO as long as the big auditorium remains twinned. AMC should take a lesson from the Del Mar in Santa Cruz, and restore the big house to its pre-split glory.
Just restore the big auditorium and you’ll be turning people away.
Well everyone, the old Cinemeccanica projectors are a thing of the past for the AVCO Cinemas. I’m very proud to say I was the last person to thread the last three(we converted theatre 4 back to digital in October). It’s very sad to see all of them sitting in booth without a home but AMC is making large steps to revive this beautiful and historic theatre. Hopefully soon, people will be lining up again to see our films!
didnt think who the posting above was from Now i know Its Bill S. use to work with us at Untied Artists right?
Our DM Neal Stolberg had a great crew of managers in his Southern California district. I always enjoyed working the GCC chain.
You tell them BradE41.I worked for GCC in management pretty decent chain in the 80’s when I was there!