Paragon theater is expanding but bowling is out

Mike Whalen, one of the owners of the Paragon movie theaters at CocoWalk, came before the BID marketing committee yesterday to give a report and to ask for money.

He said he is very pleased with the progress that the theater has made. He said that it takes time to change people's habits and they are changing theirs to come back to the Grove for movies. The theater has exceeded all his expectations.

Daytimes are mostly accommodating children and families and evenings seem to be mostly adults. So far, teens have avoided the theater, but that is not who they are marketing to anyway. The teens seem to still love the AMC at Sunset Place.

Recently, lots of UM students returned to the Grove for the Jackass movie, so while their taste in movies may leave something to be desired, they are finding their way back to the Grove for entertainment.

The big news is that rather than add a bowling alley to the theater, which was part of the original plan, and we thought a great one, the plan now is to add two more theaters to show movies, since they are currently at capacity and they would rather do what they know -- show movies. So Paragon Grove 13 will become Paragon Grove 14. There are 12 theaters now, so we're not sure why it isn't Paragon Grove 12, but according to Mike, it will be Paragon Grove 14. Good news for you superstitious types.

"The Back Lot Cafe" is also under construction and moving fast. It is scheduled to be open in November. Mike has a great idea of giving back to the community in the way of free movies. Wednesday nights and maybe another night during the week would be the night for Hollywood Classics, like "The Godfather" or "Casablanca" and they would be in the private screening room, which is part of the cafe. The movies would be free and the public could come in, have a few drinks, a bite to eat and enjoy a free movie.

Other times The Back Lot Cafe would be used for private parties, sporting events and children's events. Four or five skee ball machines will be installed, so it will hopefully become a hangout.

Art and indie movies have been added and one or two is now shown each week. A Woody Allen movie is showing this weekend.

Now for the money -- Paragon would like $20,000 in matching funds from the BID to help with their next advertising campaign. They would put up $20,000 for a total of $40,000 in cash, but another $20,000 would be "in kind" advertising, in the form of barter (ads for movie tickets and things like that).

The BID marketing committee asked Mike to come back in a couple of weeks with his ideas of what the advertising would consist of. Mike plans to include other Grove businesses and the advertising would be more of a large scale marketing plan for all the Grove, not just Paragon Grove 14.

We aren't sure how we feel about this, why not just do all the advertising using free movie tickets as barter? Although to tell you the truth, we would love Paragon ads in the Grapevine and we'd rather have cash rather than movie tickets in return. But why should the BID pay for Paragon's advertising budget? Does it make sense? Maybe it does if Paragon is making it a "Grove event" and so far the BID has not produced any great marketing promotions, so why not use the Paragon team's brains and talent and see what they come up with.

We have seen their billboard on US1, hopefully this is not their best work.

So details are to come on that, we'll report what the BID marketing committee decides in a couple of weeks.