Hesperia movie theaters expected to open in summer of 2012

With a county government complex and city police station nearly completed, downtown Hesperia will soon get another anchor to its civic center — a 12-screen movie theater.

The 36,000-square-foot theater complex will be built on city-owned land just west of Civic Center Park at the southeast corner Smoketree Street and 9th Avenue. The complex will feature state-of-the-art, digital technology with stadium-style seating. Construction for the project will begin in 2011 with completion set for the summer of 2012, according to Steven J. Lantsberger, deputy director of economic development.

“Tonight I’m here to bring hopefully some good economic news to the community and some glimmer of hope for the downtown project here,” Lantsberger said to open his presentation Tuesday night. “This will build on the momentum we’ve created for our civic plaza.”

The agreement, which was unanimously approved by council members, calls for a 10-year exclusivity period to allow Cinema West to develop a customer base.

“We’ve come to a recommendation of a 10-year exclusivity period to provide safeguards to establish a foothold in this community.”

According to Lantsberger, the project will create 40 new jobs, provide $227,486 in developer fees and generate an estimated $8,370 in annual sales tax and $32,882 in property tax.

“We believe it will help us attract more interest by other retail and restaurant users because of the momentum generated not only by this project but the daytime population of our new High Desert Government Center, this complex and the new police headquarters,” Lantsberger said. “We believe there’s some synergy being created near downtown, and we’d sure like to capitalize on that.”

The city will provide more than an acre for the project. The city’s total investment will be $1.8 million, Lantsberger said.

Additionally, the city will have access to one of the theaters for community and city projects.

For Councilman Ed Pack, who won’t be seeking reelection in November, the movie theater deal was a long time coming.

“When I got on [the City Council] eight years ago, there was a couple things we really tried to do,” Pack said. “One was Ranchero [Road underpass], like every council tries to do, and the other was to get some entertainment in Hesperia. Well, we got — I’m going to say — one and three-quarters because we got a movie theater. I really want to thank Steve Lantsberger and his whole staff. They’ve done an outstanding job in getting a movie theater to come.”