If you show it, they will come.
That is in essence the Plymouth DDA's reasoning behind its plans to invest $18,000 to continue its Movie Lovers series at the Penn Theatre in downtown Plymouth.
The Plymouth DDA spent $21,000 this year on the Movie Lovers series, which funded the free showing of movies at the Penn Theatre every Thursday between February and May. Each month of the series has a theme, such as westerns or science fiction of Alfred Hitchcock.
The movie series was hit this year, attracting about 2,000 patrons over the 18 weeks worth of showings in the dead of winter. Most of those patrons came from Plymouth, but many others came from communities across Metro Detroit.
DDA officials believe the movie patrons, which must get the free tickets from downtown businesses, will spend more time shopping, eating and drinking in downtown. The series also helps support the Penn Theatre, an old downtown movie theater opened in 1941 and closed in recent years. It recently was saved by the Friends of the Penn Theater group and is undergoing improvements.
Source: Sherrie Pryor, operations director for the Plymouth DDA
Writer: Jon Zemke
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