The five-screen Mount Kisco Theatre at 144 Main St. in the Village of Mount Kisco is being readied for reopening and the head of the real estate services firm involved in arranging the lease suggests it may reflect growing optimism about local downtowns.
The company that has leased the theater from Martabano Realty Corp. is the AB International Group Corp. It is a five-year lease with two five-year renewal options.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AB International Group Corp. described itself as an “emerging growth company.” It said that the Mount Kisco Theatre will be the first in a new business line the company is setting up that will be known as ABQQ Cinemas in America.
The theater has a total of 466 seats and covers 8,375 square feet. It originally opened on Dec. 21, 1962, as a single-screen theater. It was operated for a number of years by Lesser Theaters, then taken over by Clearview Cinemas.
In June 2013, Bow Tie Cinemas of Ridgefield, Connecticut, became the operator when it acquired most of Clearview”™s locations. In March of 2020, Bow Tie closed the theater because of Covid-19 and announced in September 2020 that it would not be reopening.
Admiral Real Estate Services, headquartered in Bronxville, represented the landlord in the transaction. Admiral also was involved in arranging the recently announced lease of the Bronxville movie theater by Pelham”™s nonprofit Picture House Regional Film Center.
In an SEC filing, AB International Group Corp. reported that it was incorporated in Nevada in 2013 and originally intended to purchase used cars in the U. S. and sell them in Krygyzstan. It described itself as now being an intellectual property and movie investment and licensing firm, focused on acquisitions and development of various intellectual property. It also reported being involved with communications technology.
Jonathan Gordon, president and CEO of Admiral Real Estate, told the Business Journal, “We have a specialty in leasing retail space in Westchester and Fairfield counties in central business districts and have developed a specialty in movie theaters. We bring a little bit of a different approach to retail leasing where we”™re showing retailers why they can make money in a certain space and we applied that same formula to this theater and the one in Bronxville.”
Gordon said that they were urged to seek out replacement theater operators in part because the physical attributes of theaters can make it difficult to adapt them to straight retailing.
“Also, the municipalities have affection for local movie houses,” Gordon said. “It”™s something that we all associate with a downtown central business district. We did have interest from other possible users. Many of them were in the fitness field, which could make use of large, open interior spaces.”
Gordon said that Covid was an unusual time to be bringing any property to market, let alone a closed movie theater.
“Central business districts like Mount Kisco, Bronxville, Scarsdale and Rye opened up a little bit more in the second and third quarters of 2020 and may have seen a boost in retail sales because a lot of the disposable income that used to drain off into New York City was staying local because of people working remotely,” Gordon said. “It was just finding the right operator who understood the value of a theater like this. The big operators don”™t want less than 10 or 15 screens.”
Gordon said that just before Covid hit there seemed to be developing a bit of what he described as “internet fatigue” among consumers.
“Consumers wanted to go back to the brick and mortar way of shopping where they could touch and feel the products, where they could talk to an expert,” Gordon said. “People seemed to be looking for more of a boutique retail experience. Of course, Covid came through and brought that to a screaming stop. Then, it started opening up again and people started coming out and shopping and getting a sense of their communities and supporting their local retailers who also are part of the community.”
