EAST WINDSOR: Theater downsizes to make room for urgent care facility

By Amy Batista, Special Writer
EAST WINDSOR – The Town Center Plaza Shopping Center has been seeing some renovations and new businesses over the past year and this year will be no different. A new urgent care facility is moving into a portion of the existing movie theater.
“The movie theater will remain open as it has been,” said Mayor Janice Mironov in an email on Sunday.
She said that in May and June 2013, the Town Center Plaza Shopping Center (known as Levcom) appeared before the township planning board and received approval to replace the southern corner portion of the existing movie theaters with a 14,387-square-foot medical office.
“Five of the existing 15 movie theaters were to be transformed into medical space,” said Mayor Mironov. “The remaining 10 movie theaters were to remain.”
She said that the newly retrofitted space will be an urgent care and primary care facility for CentraState Healthcare System and currently is under construction.
“CentraState indicates its hope to open the new facility by the end of 2016,” she said.
Starplex Cinemas acquired the former East Windsor Multiplex in December 2013, purchasing 10 of the existing 15 theaters. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Starplex Cinemas at that time operated 40 theaters and 313 screens in 11 states, including East Brunswick and Ridgefield Park in New Jersey. In late 2014, Starplex announced significant seating upgrades which in fact were completed by March 2015 during which the theaters not being worked on remained opened. She said the seating upgrade included larger, reclining leather seats with additional room between the seating aisles.
“AMC Entertainment had announced plans to acquire Starplex movie theaters,” said the mayor. “However, per media reports, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Connecticut attorney general’s office brought an anti-trust complaint stating that the deal could harm competition because AMC and Starplex are rivals in the movie exhibition business in and around East Windsor, NJ and Berlin, CT, and that this rivalry spurs each to improve the quality of its theaters and keeps ticket prices in check.”
In a negotiated settlement, they agreed that the AMC deal can proceed if AMC divests the East Windsor theater as well as the Starplex theater in Berlin, CT, to an approved buyer, she added.
Mayor Mironov said that Carmike Cinemas purchased the two theaters, including the East Windsor movie theater. Carmike Cinemas, based in Columbus, Georgia, stated that the deal with AMC Entertainment brings Carmike’s total number of theaters to 275, with 2,942 screens in 41states.