Architect’s rendering of The Lumiere, the independent movie theater planned for Dickson Street
Rendering by Marlon Blackwell Architects
The independent movie theater project planned for Dickson Street is a bit closer to becoming a reality this week.
Locals Brian Hill, Ross Cully and Greg Billingsley recently submitted preliminarily plans for their three-story facility at 227 W. Dickson to the city of Fayetteville for review, and are planning to start demolition of the current building in the coming months.
“We’re moving forward, absolutely,” Hill said. “We’re currently in the process of bidding everything out. It took us almost three years to get here, but it’s fast and furious at this point.”
The new building, which will be called the Lumiere, is being designed by renowned Fayetteville architect Marlon Blackwell, and will include three indoor movie theaters, a cafe, a bar, and a rooftop screen for outdoor movie nights.
The movie theater portion of the building will be named August and Louie, after French pioneer inventors and early filmmakers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere. Hill said the plans for the building call for two 50 seat theaters for independent and documentary films, along with a roughly 250-300 seat hybrid movie theatre / music venue / event space for larger films, concerts, and conferences.
The partners have also purchased a portable outdoor movie screen, and plan to start showing films around the Fayetteville community to begin building buzz about their project.
The first of those events is set for this Friday, Oct. 28 at Puritan Brew Co. Hill said the plan is to set their 20-foot portable screen up on the rooftop of the current building, and play the latest Ghostbuster’s film to be visible on the patio at Puritan. The film will begin at around 8 p.m.
In addition to the movie theater, the Lumiere will also house a bar serving mixed drinks, wines, and local beer, and a cafe, Hill said.
He and his partners have recently begun working with chefs to create the menu for the cafe, which Hill said will focus primarily on filling finger foods.
“We’ll have popcorn and candy and the things you want when you’re in a movie, but also entrees that will fill you that you don’t need utensils for,” he said. “We’ve been trying out filet skewers, salmon skewers, pretzels, chicken & waffle skewers, empanadas, sliders, fries, things like that.”
Hill said he expects demolition to begin in sixty days, and the buildout for the new facility will take between 12-14 months.
That means that if all goes well, the new facility will be open sometime in late 2017/early 2018.
