The District is getting yet another movie theater in the next couple of years beside Union Market, the upscale food hall in a warehouse district in Northeast DC. Edens, the developer that owns Union Market, will build an eight-screen Angelika Film Center as the anchor of a mixed-use development it plans to open in 2015 as the neighborhood transforms from industrial to residential and commercial.
The announcement comes a week after Landmark Theatres unveiled plans for a ten-screen cinema in 2016 at New York Avenue and N Street, Northeast, less than a mile away frim Union Matrket in the NoMa neighborhood. Both Landmark and Angelika specialize in independent and foreign titles.
Edens tested out Union Market as a screening venue last summer with drive-in shows. But building a full-scale movie theater (with gourmet snacks to live up to the neighboring market, of course) is just one piece of Edens’ broader plan for the Union Market area, which the company eventually wants to build into a 45-acre district with 7 million square feet of residential and commercial space. However it does cement the notion that DC is about to enjoy a movie theater boom.
Besides Landmark and now Angelika, a 16-screen Showplace Icon multiplex is set to open in Navy Yard in 2016.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
