Washington will get another high-end movie theater-slash-cool bar on October 15 when Landmark Theatres opens its six-screen cinema at the Atlantic Plumbing building in Shaw. The building, located at 8th and V Streets, Northwest, is one of several projects in the neighborhood from development firm JBG, and contains 62 condominiums that are scheduled to take occupancy by the end of the year.
While Atlantic Plumbing condos bring more high-priced residential real estate to red-hot Shaw, the cinema anchoring the building ratchets up DC’s fancy-movie-theater arms race. The six auditoriums feature oversized leather seats arranged in a stadium-like layout, digital projection, advanced Dolby sound, and, unusual for most moviegoing experiences, an option to reserve specific seats.
But even if people can choose their seats, they won’t be able to choose their movie on opening night. The Atlantic Plumbing cinema will launch with Steve Jobs—the biopic starring Michael Fassbender as the Apple founder—playing on all six screens.
The new Landmark multiplex doesn’t quite reach the lucre of cinemas like the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax or iPicTheaters in Bethesda, where customers can order full restaurant-style meals that are delivered to them during the movie, but it does have other frills. The lobby will serve double duty as Shaw’s newest “destination for food, drink, and entertainment,” with full cocktail and craft-beer menus, reads a Landmark press release. Landmark’s other locations in Washington—E Street, Bethesda, and the former West End Cinema—serve alcohol, but don’t have full bar service like the Atlantic Plumbing cinema will.
Landmark, which specializes in independent, foreign, and big-studio prestige features, is also planning to build a 10-screen venue in 2016 at the Capitol Point development in NoMa. At least two more upscale movie theaters are under development in DC, with a 10-screen Angelika slated for Union Market and a 16-screen Showplace Icon set to open in Navy Yard.
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.
