Dendy interested in a Queanbeyan cinema

THERE'S renewed interest in a Queanbeyan cinema development after representatives from national cinema company Dendy met with Council's cinema advisory committee this week.

The newly-formed cinema committee met with Dendy management on Monday for a walking tour of the CBD to identify possible cinema locations, followed by a proposal from the high-end cinema company to the committee.

Committee member and Queanbeyan Councillor Jamie Cregan said he's contacted a number of national firms to gauge their interest in a Queanbeyan cinema, and said Dendy had responded positively to the idea.

"We've reached out to all the cinema operators in the region ... just to see what their proposals are," Cr Cregan said.

"I rang in to Dendy head office, and they got back to me within a minute. They said they knew what was happening in Queanbeyan, and they wanted to come and present to us.

"I can say that it was a very positive meeting, and they'd be looking to bring their premium cinemas to Queanbeyan as well as their regular cinemas."

Dendy's head of theatrical operations, Nick Hayes, said the company viewed Queanbeyan as a potentially viable cinema market.

"We feel that Queanbeyan is a very large town without a cinema, and you wouldn't find that I don't think anywhere else in Australia," he said. "So there is certainly potential for a cinema in the Queanbeyan market."

The meeting follows a vote from Councillors in July not to support Mayor Tim Overall's proposal for Council to build a seven-screen multiplex at the former Queanbeyan Nursery site by the River.

The proposal included Council constructing the building at a cost of up to $8 million and renting it to Metro Cinemas over a 20-year lease. Council staff estimated the venture would pay for itself at the six year mark.

Six of the ten councillors voted against that proposal, citing a need to see more financial and business data. They voted instead to form a cinema advisory committee, to be made up of councillors and representatives of the public, who would oversee an independent feasibility study for a cinema in Queanbeyan, and then seek potential operators should the study support a viable cinema model and location.

However the mayor said in June that the Metro cinema proposal was the first Queanbeyan had received in 18 years, and that it could be another decade before another interested party came along. He noted in a report to Council that by not supporting the Metro multiplex, there was "a strong likelihood that it could be many years if not a decade or so before we see a cinema complex in Queanbeyan, if not at all, given the limited localities and opportunities."

But Cr Cregan said the advisory committee would be reaching out to all interested parties, including Metro Cinemas, and that a new cinema development in Queanbeyan was still "very much alive."

"We won't be looking at another 20 years before a cinema operator comes to Queanbeyan- there are other operators who are interested," Cr Cregan said.

"We [the advisory committee] were confident that we had the ability to attract a cinema operator to Queanbeyan. Now it's about delivering that."

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