The proposed cinema/indoor entertainment center at McCrosky Road and Texas 35 was authorized by City Council and the Bay City Community Development Corporation (BCCDC) board in a joint meeting at City Hall Monday night. After an hour-long closed meeting, members of both entities approved in open session moving ahead with the BCCDC project that was the subject of a joint executive session last week.
Council passed the resolution authorizing the complex on first and second readings Monday night. “As we move forward, we need to put in a management structure to manage this project,” said Bill Cornman, a city council and BCCDC board member.
“This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done – the most complicated,” Cornman said. Both council and BCCDC members praised BCCDC Executive Director D.C. Dunham for her three years of work on bringing the 47,000-square-foot Schulman entertainment center here.
Dunham pointed out after the meeting that “nothing has changed” in the proposed lease agreement. “We’re not giving up anything,” she said. BCCDC will build the complex and Schulman will lease it from BCCDC. The proposal calls for Schulman to repay the city within three to five years.
It will cost about $8 million to build the center, initial projections show. She said the city could sell the facility to Schuman Entertainment should it want, for example, to pay off the construction costs in the first three years of the lease. Arthur Milberger, as an investor in Schulman’s Movie Bowl Grille-Bay City, will donate the land for the project and they will invest $4 million in furniture, fixtures, equipment and operating capital. In addition to getting the lease signed, Dunham said the project will require final design drawings and engineering and a preliminary budget before talking with possible lenders.