Manhattan City Commissioners approved an amendment in the City of Manhattan’s lease agreement with the Manhattan Town Center Tuesday night.
KMAN reported last Friday that a new IMAX movie theater is set to take over the space that used to be inhabited by Sears. The change in the agreement lessens Manhattan Town Center’s rent from $200,000 to $185,000, since the new theater will take slightly less square-footage after the Sears wing is demolished.
Commissioner Wynn Butler was happy with the deal.
“I think the City did a good job on negotiating this,” he said. “As far as I can tell, doing a quick cost-benefit analysis, we’re going to lose $15,000 in lease, but we’re going to gain much more than that with the new theater here, so I don’t think you can cut a better deal than that.”
The new theater, which will include dining options along with the new IMAX screen, is slated to open Fall of 2016.
In other items, commissioners moved to accept the Manhattan Parks and Recreation Strategic Facility Improvement Plan.
Parks and Recreation Director Eddie Eastes told commissioners the plan — which has been a year in the making — has been an informative process.
“I have to say, I was a little concerned with the year time frame that this process was taking,” he said. “But it’s been well worth it, looking back on the mountain of community involvement we’ve had with this process.”
The plan calls for numerous improvements to parks and recreation facilities in the Little Apple with just as numerous ways to implement them. Some of the ideas in the plan include several neighborhood recreational centers along with an expansion of indoor facilities.
Steering Committee Chair Bruce Snead said indoor facilities is one of the plan’s big priorities.
“It is clear that Manhattan has great parks,” he said. “In comparable cities we fair very well, but where we fall short, severely, is in indoor facilities.”
Commissioner Mike Dodson was high on the plan and said feasibility studies on improvements will give commissioners better specifics on how much of the plan can be implemented.
