Bournemouth council is suing the Belfast-based Sheridan Group over delays in completing the IMAX cinema scheme in Bournemouth town centre. The £25m IMAX-led leisure scheme had been expected to open in July 1999 on council-owned land at an agreed rent of £50,000 pa.
A council spokesperson said: “The council has started legal proceedings against Sheridan for potential loss of rent due to late opening.” The council argues it may have lost a further £250,000 in income it would have received from the site’s former use as a car park, which ended when construction began in April 1998.
A spokesperson for Sheridan said the building is complete but does not have the IMAX screen, projector and sound system. “They are in a bonded warehouse and Sheridan cannot get them because of a legal dispute with IMAX,” said the spokesperson.
He denied the dispute was over money but admitted there had been “financial hiccups” with the building contractor Ernest Ireland that resulted in a three-month delay to work on site. The dispute appears to involve Belfast’s £90m millennium project, the Odyssey at Queen’s Quay, where Sheridan is also building an IMAX.
Simon West of Bournemouth agent Cowling & West commented: “The business community in Dorset are very bemused with the delay in opening the IMAX cinema and question whether it will ever open. It’s wholly unusual. A very bizarre situation.”
Sheridan was formed by chairman Peter Curistan in 1989 and is one of several companies to have Canadian firm IMAX’s franchise. Sheridan has built and completed an IMAX in Dublin, but Bournemouth is the company’s first UK IMAX scheme.
Sheridan’s next project is an IMAX at the visitor centre at Loch Lomond and it plans to expand its IMAX network to 10 cinemas by the end of 2004.
EGi News 24/10/00
