12-screen AMC theater opens in East Northport

The show has begun where Sears took a bow in East Northport.

A 12-screen AMC movie theater opened Monday afternoon in part of a former Sears department store that is being redeveloped for retail and fitness.

The AMC Dine-in Huntington Square 12 features reclining, heated seats in 10 of the auditoriums; reserved stadium seating; dine-in eating with the option to have food delivered to patrons in auditoriums; and alcohol sales, said Ryan Noonan, spokesman for Leawood, Kansas-based AMC Entertainment Inc.

The approximately 47,000-square-foot theater is in a retail development at 4000 Jericho Tpke. that is split between two owners.

“It was an exciting opportunity both because of the retail that already exists there and for an opportunity to serve more guests in the Long Island area. It was a location we felt could use another good movie experience,” Noonan said.

AMC, the largest operator in the United States, has seven theaters on Long Island. Its East Northport venue is one of only three new theaters that the company is opening this year, since AMC has been focusing more on renovating existing theaters than building new ones for the last 10 years, Noonan said.

The East Northport theater has a full-service kitchen preparing appetizers, entrees and desserts that patrons can order and have delivered to their seats. Wine, beer and cocktails can be purchased from AMC MacGuffins, a bar in the theater, but delivery service is not available for those.

In two premium auditoriums, called Dolby Cinema and Prime, the reclining seats aren’t heated but they rumble to coincide with action on the screens, Noonan said.

He declined to disclose the cost of the theater, but said it is a “multimillion-dollar investment.” He also declined to disclose how many total seats the theater has, but said the number of seats per auditorium ranges from 45 to 181.

The regular adult ticket price for an evening movie is $13.99, the Dolby Cinema price is $18.99, and the Prime is $17.99.

The Sears that was in East Northport opened in 1980 and was among 20 stores that Sears Holdings Corp. closed in 2017. Seritage Growth Properties, a Manhattan-based real estate investment trust that was spun off from Sears in 2015, owns the old Sears site in East Northport.

Seritage did not respond to a request for comment.

In May 2018, the Huntington Planning Board granted site plan approval to Seritage’s proposal to convert the two-story former Sears in East Northport into a movie theater, a 39,384-square-foot gym, and 88,326 square feet of retail space. Seritage calls its section of the shopping center Huntington Square Mall on its website.

The rest of the shopping center — 74,000 square feet — is called Huntington Square and owned by Federal Realty Investment Trust, a Rockville, Maryland-based company. That section of the shopping center includes a Barnes & Noble bookstore, America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Chili’s Bar & Grill.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.