Moving Picture Partners

Help bring independent cinema to New Paltz
Make your voice heard!

Water Street Market is seeking the approval of the Village of New Paltz Planning Board to create a community-based mission-driven art house theater, the Water Street Market backlot Cinema, to be housed in a newly constructed facility at 12 Main Street in New Paltz, N.Y.

A public hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday September 16 at 7:00 PM in the Village Hall.

Please show your support by attending. If you are unable to attend, send your comments to the Village Planning Board via email at [email protected]

What is the Water Street Market backlot Cinema?
The new cinema will provide the residents of New Paltz and the surrounding communities with access to the best in independent, documentary, world and classic films in a state-of-the-art viewing venue.

As many of you are aware, in 2012 a proposal to create an art house theater was brought forward to the Village of New Paltz Planning Board and withdrawn. How is this proposal different from the 2012 proposal? The new proposal is an effort to be responsive to both the general support and specific concerns expressed with regard to the earlier proposal.

Both proposals have the same intention:

• Bring movies of interest to the diverse New Paltz community,
which otherwise would not be presented in the town
• Enrich the community -- not any single individual or group
• Provide state-of-the-art screening rooms with stadium seating, and
high quality digital sound and projection.

The proposals are different in that the new cinema:

– Is smaller:
• Two screening rooms vs. four screening rooms
• Capacity of 98 seats vs. 360 seats
• Less than 2750 square feet vs. 7000 + square feet
• Shorter by 13 feet
– Will have substantially fewer screenings
– Includes sufficient parking
– Provides no access from Main Street or Wurtz Ave.
– Has no associated cafe

What are some positive effects of an art house cinema?
Art house cinemas are different than most cinemas in America and they play a different role in the community. Art house attendees tend to be older. 57% are 55 or older vs. 26% for the US overall. They go to movies at art houses for the social experience. 58% usually attend movies with other people, most often a spouse, partner or significant other. They experience a profound impact on the quality of their life. More than 60% indicated that their favorite art house was “extremely valuable” or “very valuable” to their overall quality of life.

When rating the art house theaters they attend most often, 92% of attendees agree that it makes life enjoyable; 83% agree that it helps them be a more knowledgeable film viewer; 81% agree that it serves as an anchor in their community; 78% agree that it opens up new worlds; 75% that it makes them a more well-rounded person; 73% that it fills gaps in their knowledge; 72% that it teaches them about film appreciation or history and changes their life for the better and 61% agree that it makes them more tolerant of other points of view. *

How the new proposal addresses concerns related to the 2012 proposal?
We all would like to have easy parking near our homes and live in a safe tranquil environment. Concern has been expressed about the potential negative effect of the proposed art house cinema on the neighboring public streets in the village. Individual property owners on Wurts Avenue have spoken about how the road is constricted and that there is insufficient room in places for two cars to pass. People living on Wurts Avenue report that they frequently find that there is no place to park their own cars, or that someone has parked in front of their driveways.

We are sympathetic to these concerns and hope to become good and supportive neighbors. The question -- is whether the newly designed boutique art cinema would significantly worsen the current situation.

The new proposal for a 98-seat art cinema addresses the parking and traffic concerns by providing sufficient parking in the Water Street Market parking lots; by making people aware of the availability of community friendly parking, and by encouraging patrons to minimize traffic by walking, biking and ride sharing.

Specifically:
1. There is sufficient parking in the Water Street Market parking facility to support the proposed cinema. Assuming that every seat is occupied in the cinema and that all viewers arrive by car, we anticipate that 44 parking spaces will be needed (assuming 2.25 people per car, a national average). These spaces will be available in the Water Stree Market parking lots, based on the number of establishments open in the evening in Water Street Market. In the extremely unlikely event that everyone would arrive by car and that every seat would be sold, there is sufficient parking on the premises.

2. In addition to the sufficient space in the Water Street Market there are many unused spaces in close proximity. The “Water Street Cinema Traffic Impact Study” created in 2012 by independent expert William D. FitzPatrick, P.E., PTOE of FITZPATRICK ENGINEERING, LLC found that 1) within 5 minutes walking distance of the proposed cinema there are 208 public parking spaces, two-thirds of which are in Municipal Parking Lots; 2) within 8 minutes walking distance there are an additional 55 Municipal Parking Lot spaces; and 3) that based on observed utilization, during prime cinema operating hours, over 160 of the spaces on average were available.

3. Although the cinema is a not-for-profit business it does need to have paying customers to survive. Returning customers are essential to any retail business and without them the cinema will fail. If people are unable to find suitable parking in a timely fashion they will not return. The cinema will be vigilant in making people aware of community friendly parking. The cinema’s approach to parking is part of our commitment to sustainable design. Our goal is to create the “greenest” cinema in New York State. “Green” parking means encouraging biking, walking, use of public transport, ride sharing, and better utilization of existing parking in the area. The Loop Bus which passes within two blocks of the proposed site has carried over 45,000 passengers in the first ten months of 2012. The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, within 2 minutes walking distance, provides environmentally friendly access from adjoining communities. Through its web-presence, signage and other means, the cinema will actively publicize and encourage access to the cinema by foot, bus or bicycle. We will also identify available parking within a 5-10 minute walk. The cinema will help make “green living” a greater part of the fabric of the community.

We hope that the advantages that an art house cinema can bring will encourage the greater New Paltz community to support this opportunity. We also hope that the new design mitigates potential negative impact sufficiently to make everyone comfortable.

Please show your support by attending the public hearing on Tuesday September 16 at 7:00 PM in the Village Hall, 25 Plattekill Avenue, New Paltz, New York.

If you are unable to attend, send your comments to the Village Planning Board via email and they will be read at the meeting. Please address them to: [email protected]


*Note: The preceding information has been taken from a research report presented on January 15, 2014 at the 2014 Art House Convergence conference in Midway, Utah. The report was sponsored by the Art House Convergence; the analysis and reporting were co-prepared by the Bryn Mawr Film Institute and Avenue ISR, a Traverse City, Michigan based research and strategy consultancy. More than 18,000 art house attendees of 29 movie theaters from across the United States participated in this landmark study. Data was collected using an online survey hosted on a third-party web site.

REMINDER
Please come tomorrow. Show your support and express your views. Bring your friends.

We are requesting a variance from sections 212-47 Schedule (C) of the Village Code - seeking relief from the on-site parking requirement for a proposed not-for-profit art cinema and cafe on the lot at 12 Main Street.

The Public Hearing will be held at the Village Hall, 25 Plattekill Avenue, New Paltz
7:00 p.m. - November 13, 2012.

The proposed not-for-profit art cinema will be a cultural resource for the Village of New Paltz and adjoining communities. New Paltz is a destination for its cultural, historical, and scenic beauty and the cinema will add to these opportunities. It is anticipated that much of the patronage of the cinema will be a continuation of visitor's enjoyment of the Village's attributes - historic Huguenot Street, the stone houses, restaurants, and unique retail and market experiences. Since the closing of the Academy Theater in the 1980s, New Paltz has been without an art cinema. The Academy was an entertainment anchor in the downtown area providing cultural and social vitality to the community and attracting patrons to local shops, restaurants, and bars. The not-for-profit cinema is envisioned to play a similar role and become one of the town's main destinations for evening entertainment and a center for social discourse. The cinema will primarily screen the best of independent, documentary, and world cinema, mixed with classic films.

Although the cinema has no on-site parking, the variance is not substantial because a significant portion of the audience will not arrive via car and because of the abundance of parking for those that will. Within an 8 minute walking radius of the cinema there are over 250 public parking spaces of which more than half have been observed to be available during prime operating hours. The scheduled nature of movie screenings makes these alternatives particularly appealing. Many patrons are anticipated to arrive on foot having parked for other activities in the Village.