Fifth screen planned for Reel Cinema in Blossom Street, York (From York Press)

Fifth screen planned for Reel Cinema in Blossom Street, York

8:31am Wednesday 3rd March 2010

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PLANS have been drawn up to create a fifth screen at York’s Reel Cinema as bosses continue with a rolling refurbishment of the former Odeon.

Reel boss Kailash Suri says a 40-seat fourth screen opened successfully upstairs at the picturehouse in Blossom Street last month, and now he hoped Screen 5 would open before the summer holidays in the former cinema shop directly below.

He revealed other improvements were also in the pipeline later this year in the massive Screen 1 auditorium. He planned to install equipment so 3D films could be screened by the summer holidays, and also intended improving seating in parts of Screen 1 to increase audience comfort later in the year.

The art deco former Odeon cinema re-opened last year after lying empty and boarded-up for several years. It had been shut by Odeon despite a petition by more than 13,000 Press readers calling for it to be refurbished and re-opened.

Reel, an independent cinema chain with 15 outlets across the country, carried out a partial refurbishment before re-opening, but Mr Suri said today it was always intended to carry out further improvements subsequently.

However, the tough financial situation nationwide meant this was being done step by step, and might now take three years to complete instead of two.

He said the fourth screen had allowed the cinema to show more films and given it a greater flexibility in moving films around from screen to screen, and a fifth and a further screen would improve this situation still further.

He said a planning application had been submitted to City of York Council and work on the fifth screen would start as soon as permission was granted.

The company had agreed with officials to put cinema posters in windows to maintain the appearance of shop windows. The extra screen meant earlier plans to open an Indian restaurant in the former shop had now been abandoned.

Mr Suri said the area of seating in the middle section of Screen 1 was set to be replaced in the autumn, with customers given more leg room.

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