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Sam, I am actually preparing a presentation to the landlord themselves to front the cash for the equipment and roll it into the lease. I'm going to try and make the case that it is going to be nearly impossible to re-open the theater without getting the VPF to defray the transition costs and that an old sloped floor theater is a nearly useless 15,000 sqft in their 80,000 sqft building. I think it is actually one of those few win-win scenarios that are actual win-wins .

Well, it looks like I'll be flying out to California on the 10th of July to speak to the property owner in person and pitch them on the project. Here's hoping all goes well!

A little update.

Had a meeting with the property manager and the property owner. They are willing to put $25k up front and do about $75k in rent concessions over the three year term. A good start, but they have a heckuva a lot more cash to put in as they told me they have $400k from their insurance settlement which only $70k is going towards other things (they are doing a complete facelift to the entire shopping center and few other odds and ends). So they have $330k and few options besides me.

also

I have a question for those of you that might have a building kind of like ours. We are 5 screens, 15000 sqft, and in the Houston, TX area (so HOT HOT HOT, lots of A/C). Anybody have any experience with a similar sized theater in a similar location? I understand there are a million other variables in play, but could you give me any idea of what your kWh usage has been on average?

so much has to do with insulation and the equipment you have. Ask for the meter # and call the elec company and I'll bet they provide all. Watch out for energy costs as I saw mine go up by nearly 400% and it really screwed the bottom line. You can chew through 100K on a refit like it was an appetizer. Be careful.

Hooray! After some intense digging, we were able to get historical data on usage for the theater. We also found some schedules from part of that time, so we can find of piece together about how much they were using per hour of operation.

Another little update. Well, the property owner decided to do direct financing (at 0%) so that we could go digital in the two larger auditoriums. Very excited about this turn of events as we've had a really tough time getting banks to give us more than a glance. Lease is signed and work begins tomorrow on the renovation

The lease is signed, permits being processed, meetings with city officials scheduled, materials being ordered, equipment being ordered, all manner of fun stuff.