Wake County investors pay $2M for Chapel Hill movie theater, plan for medical offices
A group of Wake County investors who plan to convert Chapel Hill’s longtime Regal Timberlyne movie theater into medical offices and clinics closed recently on the $2 million deal.
Regal Cinemas closed the theater at 120 Banks Drive across from the Food Lion, in March amid state COVID-19 restrictions. The sale was finalized Dec. 15 with Parkway Holdings Phase 2 LLC, VIP Chapel Hill LLC and investor Harry Kazazian, according to Orange County deed records.
A formal application for a special-use permit to renovate the building was filed with the town in November. The plan for Timberlyne Offices has not changed significantly since an advisory board review of the draft plan in September.
The application from TMTLA Associates calls for demolishing the building’s north and south wings to make room for 18 additional parking spaces. The building’s exterior would be modernized.
The project also would replace a dilapidated fence behind the theater, connect to nearby Walgreens, and replace the building’s plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems. The primary tenant would be a radiology clinic, the application stated.
No additional driveways or sidewalks are planned for the 1.53-acre site. The new building would be roughly 20,000 square feet — about 2,500 square feet smaller than the theater — and remain one story.
No date has been set for advisory board or Town Council reviews of the proposed project.
Chapel Hill movie theaters
Regal Timberlyne, which opened the six-screen, 1,350-seat theater in 1993 near the Timberlyne shopping center, was one of 18 Regal Theatre locations remaining in North Carolina and one of Chapel Hill’s last chain movie theaters.
Now, the town’s only chain theater is Silverspot Cinema, which opened in 2015 at University Place mall. A few small, independent theaters also remain — Lumina Theater in Southern Village, the Varsity Theatre on East Franklin Street and Chelsea Theater at Timberlyne — despite the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new medical building, in addition to being behind Walgreens, would be within walking distance of the Timberlyne Animal Hospital and UNC Orthopaedics at Weaver Crossing. More medical offices are located to the north and east, along Weaver Dairy Road. A mobile home park is directly behind the theater.
Chapel Hill’s Community Design Commission praised plans to repurpose the building in September, offering just a few suggestions for how to make the plan better. The revised plan includes many new windows to bring natural light into the space and energy-saving features, including LED lighting, water-saving fixtures and a high-efficiency heating and air-conditioning system.
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 1:03 PM.
