Coming to a city centre near you (hopefully) could be a bespoke multi-screen cinema after the operator applied for a premises licence allowing them to show movies until 4am.
Last year Cheshire West and Chester Council announced Picturehouse Cinemas had been selected to run a six-screen venue within the £300m Northgate Development aimed at regenerating Chester .
With more than 715 seats, the cinema would be located above a new market hall on the site of the old Princess Street bus exchange next to Storyhouse , which brought film back to the city albeit in a single screen 100-seat cinema.
Now Picturehouse has just applied for a premises licence that would allow movies to be shown between 8am and 1am, Monday to Sunday, and until 1.30am on New Year’s Eve and bank holidays.
The company is also asking for an extension until 4am for premieres and early releases on up to 12 occasions a year.
In addition, Picturehouse wants to sell alcohol on and off the premises and the performance of live and recorded music and plays.
Before we all get carried away – the cinema isn’t even built yet or the market square in which it will be based let alone the new market hall atop which it would sit. But the address in the application is given as ‘fronting Hunter Street and Market Place’ offering hope it will one day become a reality.
Picturehouse, a former independent group now owned by Cineworld , shows both current blockbusters and art house films.
Each outlet is unique to its surroundings. The Chester operation will feature a cafe-restaurant within the foyer and a roof terrace and bar overlooking the new market square.
A lease has been agreed with CWaC, who are driving the project, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of Northgate as the first big name to be signed up to the latest version of the regeneration scheme swiftly followed by House of Fraser.
Formed in 1989 to challenge the multiplex model, Picturehouse Cinemas own and operate 23 cinemas and programme a further 45 venues across the UK – in places such as Bath, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Oxford and York, with the Duke of York’s Picturehouse in Brighton being Britain’s longest continually operating cinema, having first opened in 1910.
The match between Chester and Picturehouse was previously described by Clare Huber, CWaC’s senior construction manager, as ‘the right fit’.
But attracting external investment in Northgate is not easy, especially in the Brexit climate. That’s why CWaC recently agreed to commit potentially up to £57m to take the scheme to the next level, with the hope it will tempt funders to jump on board at a later stage.
