A multiscreen movie theater in a newly proposed urban entertainment district in Newport is exactly what Cincinnati wants for its riverfront. But officials on both sides of the river agree only one city can have one.
A $43 million entertainment district plan - unveiled Monday at a Newport City Commission meeting by Steiner and Associates of Columbus - would include the movie theater complex, an interactive video arcade and an American wilderness attraction with wild animals.
Developers said the project would serve as an anchor for Newport's $40 million aquarium, scheduled to open in May 1999. But they stressed that plans for the entertainment district, which they hope to open by fall 1999 or spring 2000, were still preliminary.
"We're not interested in their pet menagerie or their aquarium project," Cincinnati City Manager John Shirey said Tuesday of the Newport plan. "But we happen to think a multiscreen theater project with a 3-D IMAX theater - we think that's a big project for Cincinnati, and we want it."
Developer Barry Rosenberg, who also is one of the investors in Newport's aquarium project, will not say whether a 3-D IMAX theater is part of his plan for the Newport entertainment district.
Newport City Commissioner Beth Fennell discounted the notion that Newport is trying to steal the development from Cincinnati. She said Newport has discussed the idea of an urban entertainment center for two to three years.
While Ms. Fennell thinks general entertainment centers on both sides of the river would complement one another, most Northern Kentucky leaders said they think there's room for only one entertainment district.
"Whoever puts (an entertainment district) in first wins," Campbell Judge-executive Ken Paul said.
Mr. Rosenberg has not talked to Cincinnati officials about building an entertainment project in Cincinnati, said Mark McKillip, supervising development officer for the city's economic development department.
That makes sense, because the idea for the entertainment district is to complement the aquarium in Newport.
Mr. Shirey said plans for an entertainment complex next to the aquarium show that Newport's aquarium "does not stand alone" and that these other projects are being announced to support it. The 10-acre entertainment district would sit between the L&N and Taylor Southgate bridges, and would include a plaza for festivals and musical events, a landscaped green space at the foot of Monmouth Street and a three-level, 1,500-space parking garage topped by specialty retailers not found at local malls.
It would be level with Newport's floodwall, with the aquarium occupying two acres of land and the other attractions using the other eight acres.
Cincinnati economic development officials think a multiscreen movie theater complex with a high-tech 3-D theater would complement the Bengals' new Paul Brown Stadium, scheduled to open on Cincinnati's riverfront in August 2000.
The area can support only one such riverfront movie complex, however, and that's why the race is on, Mr. Shirey said.
But Cincinnati developer Arn Bortz argued Tuesday that Cincinnati's real problem wouldn't be losing a multiscreen movie theater, which he thinks is a bad idea for either side of the river.
Rather, he said, the whole competition is a symptom of a larger problem: Cincinnati's tumultuous relationship with Hamilton County, which scares away potential investors.
"I don't think the political atmosphere would inspire confidence in anyone," said Mr. Bortz, a former Cincinnati mayor whose Towne Properties has developed a number of high-profile downtown Cincinnati projects. "We're just fundamentally not organized enough to succeed."
Indeed, Northern Kentucky business and government leaders say teamwork has been the key to that area's landing several recent developments, including the Northern Kentucky Convention Center under construction in Covington and the aquarium.
"I think Northern Kentucky's got their act together," said Mr. Paul. "While Cincinnati and Hamilton County keep fighting over (developments), they don't enjoy the pie at all," Mr. Paul said. "But over here, we're just cutting the pie up."
The problem is that Cincinnati, Newport and Covington don't have a shared master plan that makes the best use of the area's assets on both sides of the river, said Rick Greiwe, chief operating officer of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., the downtown advocacy group known as DCI.
"We fight for every little project like it's the last thing we're ever going to do," Mr. Greiwe said.
Hamilton County Commissioner Tom Neyer Jr., who also is a local developer, said he suspects the different developers are still trying to figure out whether a movie complex project can make money in this market on either side of the river.
For the sake of the whole region, Mr. Neyer said, he hopes such a project is built.
Mr. Bortz, however, argues that it's wiser to use riverfront land - on both sides of the Ohio - for parks that take advantage of the river's presence. He prefers the idea of building a movie theater complex near Cincinnati's Backstage area, which his company developed.
