Plans for cinema | Whitsundays News | Local News in Whitsundays

THERE are two applications for cinemas currently being assessed by the Whitsunday Regional Council (WRC).

One is planned for upstairs at Beach Plaza and the other a much larger project is for a shopping centre and six screen cinema complex in the heart of Airlie Beach.

The 'Airlie Central Shopping Centre' development is a project of Queensland Trustees and Investment Limited (QTI), which has owned the land since 1986 through its wholly owned subsidiary, Queensland Resorts Pty Ltd.

The company owns and operates the Magnums Backpackers on the site and also has a controlling interest in the existing shopping centre which houses Australia Post.

QTI managing director Michael Hackett released the plans to the public for the first time this week.

He said the proposed development would contain a supermarket of about 1200 square metres, about 30 specialty shops, a food court and a six screen cinema complex.

Mr Hackett said there had been several proposals for the Airlie Central Shopping Centre development over a number of years, but was confident the latest proposal was nearing final approval from Council.

A Council spokesperson confirmed Council planning officers were currently assessing two applications which included cinemas, but neither application was near approval status as yet.

QTI Project Manager Nathan Leman said the only remaining issue was making sure the car-parking numbers were sufficient.

"We are confident that this will be agreed with Council. there are three traffic engineers working to try to get a mutually satisfactory resolution as we speak," Mr Leman said.

Mr Lehman said Airlie Central was planned to move quickly to the construction stage when approvals were issued, to try to coincide with the Airlie streetscape project and flood mitigation works.

He said while QTI was currently bound by a confidentiality arrangement, he could confirm the proposed cinema operator was one of the major operators, with full access to the new release films.

"Importantly, the cinema operator was totally committed to the project and saw Airlie Beach as a strongly growing opportunity for the cinema market."

The Beach Plaza cinema was originally revealed to the Whitsunday Times in September 2006 and featured the upstairs area of the plaza transformed into a cinema.

By August 23 the following year, changes had been made to the plans and the cinema was proposed in a new room on the side of Beach Plaza, which would be accessed via lift.

Last week, a Council spokesperson said the Beach Plaza plans had recently been resubmitted after being substantially changed and the assessment process would now be hastened as most of the work had already been done.