Criterion Cinemas at Movieland to be converted into restaurant, retail space

The seats and screens in the Criterion Cinemas building have been removed as the building prepares for a hospitality conversion. (Mike Platania photo)

Amid a changing market for how art house and independent films are viewed, the owner of Movieland at Boulevard Square is looking to convert the complex’s Criterion Cinemas building into a new use. 

Bow Tie Cinemas is renovating the four-screen film house at 1331 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd. and marketing it as a retail and restaurant space for a to-be-determined user. 

The main Movieland multiplex remains operational. 

Originally built in 1900 as a brass foundry, the 5,300-square-foot Criterion building was converted into a small movie theater as part of Bow Tie’s Movieland at Boulevard Square complex in the late 2000s. 

The Criterion showed primarily independent and art house films from its opening in 2012 until 2020 when the pandemic hit. The theater has been closed ever since, but in recent weeks crews began gutting the building and marketing it as a home for a hospitality user. 

Bow Tie Partners owner Ben Moss said the Criterion started feeling headwinds a few years before the pandemic, when independent films started being released in theaters and on streaming services simultaneously, and sometimes exclusively on streaming. 

“That trend was accelerated during the pandemic, and today there isn’t a sufficient supply of specialty films for theaters like the Criterion, which regrettably renders the business model unsustainable,” Moss said in an email. “Given that fact, we reluctantly made the decision to transition the Criterion building to its next phase.”

Using the Criterion building as restaurant space was an idea Bow Tie originally weighed when the Movieland complex was being developed. 

“At the time, however, in 2009, the country was at the bottom of the great financial crisis, Scott’s Addition had not been developed to its current level and the market for restaurant tenants was not nearly as robust as what it is today, so that plan didn’t gain traction,” Moss said. 

CBRE’s Susan Jones, who’s marketing the space with colleague Andrew Ferguson, said once completed, the building will have floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides and an opportunity for outdoor patio seating. 

“The idea is to create a space for some sort of entertainment/hospitality type of place – a brewery, a restaurant, we talked about possibly a food hall,” Jones said. 

“We feel like with the location being so ideal with all the stuff going in Scott’s Addition and the Diamond District, it’ll be a really nice addition to the community.”

Jones said the theater’s shell conversion is scheduled to be completed in the coming weeks. 

After selling part of its land to developers last year, Bow Tie Partners owns 11 acres near Scott’s Addition.  (BizSense file photos)

Bow Tie Partners owns 11 acres near the intersection of Arthur Ashe Boulevard and Leigh Street. Last spring it sold a 6-acre wooded area at 2900 W. Leigh St. for $15.5 million to a group of D.C.-based developers that is planning a 375-unit apartment building on the site. That same group is also planning to redevelop the former Car Pool Car Wash and Buz and Ned’s restaurant plot just south on Arthur Ashe Boulevard into a 305-unit apartment, mixed-use building. 

The Movieland site has had a handful of projects floated for it in recent years. In 2021 it was pitched by The Cordish Cos. as the site for a casino, but the Baltimore-based developer’s proposal was not selected by the city. 

Moss said Bowtie doesn’t have any immediate plans to develop other parts of the property.

In addition to its land on Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Bow Tie also owns a 2-acre parking lot downtown at 370 E. Main St. Bow Tie has owned the site since 2005 and has long listed it on its website as a future development site it calls Jefferson Square. Moss said the company similarly has no near-term plans to develop that lot either. 

“However, just as with Boulevard Square (the Movieland property), we do our best to keep our eyes up and monitor the market, so in the future, when the timing is right, we would consider a redevelopment of that property,” Moss said. 

The main Movieland theater, meanwhile, has continued to rebound from what Moss said was the worst period in the movie theater business’ history. 

“While the market for specialty films in theaters like the Criterion doesn’t exist anymore, at least not in a meaningful way, the market for broadly appealing commercial films has returned with significant momentum,” he said.