WATCHUNG - The developer of a new Cinemark Theater has been given the OK to build a 10-screen luxury movie house off Route 22.
Featuring Cinemark's Luxury Loungers, it will be the only movie theater between Bridgewater and Mountainside. The borough's Planning Board approved the project on Tuesday night.
Seritage Growth Properties, a New York City-based real estate firm, already received approval to convert an existing Sears into a shopping and restaurant complex. Both Sears and its auto center will close in September as part of a nationwide shuttering of locations.
The board is expected to give final approval for the project at its Sept. 19 meeting, according to an article on tapinto.
HomeSense and Sierra Trading Post will be among the stores at the new center, tapinto reported. Tenants for the other storefronts and restaurant sites have not been announced.
Fundraising efforts by the borough's Historical Committee to move the Legend of Watchung mural located inside Sears are continuing, it was previously reported. The group is seeking to raise $40,000 to remove and conserve the 16-foot by 10-foot mural by Garfield Hunter Jones that is painted on a thin campus glued to a wall.
Sears opened the borough location in 1965, and the mural is thought to have been mounted there around the same time.
Cinemark, headquartered in Plano, Texas, operates two other cinemas in New Jersey -- in Hazlet and Camden County, but is the third-largest cinema chain in the United States with 526 in 41 states.
While full details about the new theater have not been released, Cinemark theaters with Luxury Loungers often include full-service kitchens, the ability to order food from your seat, in-theater food service, a bar and curved screens.
Sears' announced in February, it would be closing 42 Sears and 108 Kmart stores this year as part of a plan to save $1 billion.
Craig Turpin may be reached at cturpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @NJeditor.
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