Port Blakely Communities took another important step forward in their cultivation of a residential and commercial community in the Issaquah Highlands, with the announcement last week that Regal Entertainment Group will open a 14 screen, 64,000 square foot theater there in May 2011.
The state-of-the-art theatre will be named Regal Cinemas Issaquah Highlands Stadium 14.
A difficult economic environment has slowed the development of the highly touted new neighborhood.
The anticipated construction of a campus for Microsoft has yet to occur, and earlier this year The Central Market grocery store, which was scheduled to open in the Issaquah Highlands in 2010, shelved its plans altogether.
On the positive side, Swedish Medical Center is only a few months behind their initial plans to open a hospital in Highlands in late 2010.
The announcement that a major entertainment venue is on the drawing board will be great news for residents, some of whom were starting to wonder when the community they were promised would fully blossom.
This summer two new restaurants opened in the Highlands: a Zeeks Pizza franchise and Agave Cocina & Tequilas. Recently, Proliance Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine opened a 43,000 square foot facility in the area.
The new theater will be located at Park Drive and High Street, and 10th Avenue and Highlands Drive.
The Reporter left a message with Regal’s corporate division, asking what this would mean for the existing Regal cinema in Issaquah, a nine screen complex near Costco to the north of Interstate 90, but did not receive a reply.
Regal’s commitment to the Highlands came just days before it was announced that Wellington Park Pointe LLC, the developer that owns 67 acres on Tiger Mountain, had defaulted on its loan repayments and would not go ahead with development plans there.
The collapse of this project will no doubt be of concern to investors in the Highlands, some of which, have already delayed or scrapped their plans to build retail and office projects in the new suburb due to economic pressures.
