General Cinema Corp. has agreed to build one of the largest movie theater complexes attempted to date in the Chicago area, a 14-screen, 4,500-seat cinema in the Ford City Shopping Center at 76th Street and Cicero Avenue on the city`s Southwest Side.
The 55,000-square-foot cinema would open in late 1988 and replace a 5-screen theater at Ford City, according to Equity Properties and Development Co., Chicago, which acquired the shopping center in the spring of 1987 from the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.
A 40,000-square-foot garden, outdoor and recreational merchandise store will be razed to make room for the additional screens, Equity said. A computerized ticket sales system within the shopping center is being considered.
General Cinema is a Boston-based chain with 330 movie theaters throughout the U.S. Its Ford City project is part of Equity`s plans to update the 22-year-old property, which has about 130 stores in 1.65 million square feet.
Interior spaces will be reconfigured to accommodate 30 more shops; a 207,000-square-foot space vacated earlier this year by the bankrupt Wieboldt Stores Inc. will be subdivided for two smaller anchors; and a 10-vendor, 500- seat food court will be built.
