Plans to demolish Clifton’s Allwood Cinemas are headed for a hearing – NorthJersey.com
CLIFTON —The curtain may be coming down at the Allwood Cinemas.
Twice, applications that called for the demolition of the 70-plus-year-old theater have appeared on city zoning board agendas, and twice they’ve been sent back to the drawing board.
An item listed on the agenda for Wednesday’s Board of Adjustment meeting is now moved to March 3, and the planning office said Tuesday that the plans are being reworked.
This latest episode for the theater began in September, when the owner, Empire Realty Management Group, was scheduled to be heard at a zoning board meeting.
The proposal at that time called for the theater’s demolition. It would have been replaced with three retail stores and a four-story building with 42 age-restricted housing units on top on the roughly two-thirds of an acre lot
The applications come after a horrific year at movie box offices nationwide.
In 2020 the Motion Picture Association reported a box office gross of $2.2 billion in receipts, the lowest in 40 years. Receipts bounced back slightly in 2021, to more than $4 billion, compared with more than $11 billion in 2019.
Closings: Over a year after closing due to COVID, Ramsey Theater sold to a borough resident
Related: Here’s which NJ movie theaters are reopening, which aren’t and what to expect when you go
In 1981 United States and Canada box offices generated just under a billion in sales. That was when average ticket prices were around $3, vs. more than $9 in 2020.
Empire Realty purchased the Allwood property in 2015 for $1.25 million, tax records show. Taxes on the property exceed $58,000.
Empire recently submitted scaled-back plans for the site. Three stores were still envisioned, but the newer plans reduced the height to three stories with 26 senior housing units.
However, Planning Department officials said the developer has pulled the plans again and plants to resubmit them. A March 2 hearing date is set.
In the latest application, two use variances are required, one to permit more than two principal uses on the same lot and a second to permit housing in a B-C zone where no housing is permitted. In the past, the city has balked at permitting more than one use.
At the western end of the Allwood neighborhood, Clifton declined to permit the construction of a Quick Chek gas station and convenience store on the site of Ploch’s Garden Center. Instead a Cube Smart storage facility was built.
In 1962, Allwood was one of two theaters in the city, the other being the Clifton Theater at the intersection Main and Clifton avenues, City Historian Donald Lotz said. It’s now home to the AMC Clifton Commons theater, with 16 screens.
Matt Fagan is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: fagan@northjersey.com
Twitter: @fagan_nj
