ATHOL — The magic of the movies will be celebrated at the 89th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday, but the North Quabbin area has reason to cheer, too, with the announcement that an eight-screen cinema is slated to open by this time next year.
The North Quabbin Commons hosts Market Basket and a handful of other businesses and is poised to welcome the theater with state-of-the-art digital presentation, with digital sound and 3-D, according to Steve Cucinatti, a leasing representative for RMD Inc., the property management company that handles the leasing for DeMoulas Super Markets Inc., which owns the shopping center.
“We think it’s a great draw for the region and complement to the center,” Cucinatti said.
Cucinatti said the 19,000-square-foot theater will be owned by Belmont Capital, a private operator that runs theaters throughout New England. Attempts to contact Mark Benvenuto, president of Belmont Capital’s theater division, were unsuccessful Friday.
Cucinatti said the pending theater construction and the development of a medical care building are part of the North Quabbin Commons project’s second phase, which aims to establish 136,000 square feet of retail and entertainment in the center. He said RMD is still searching for a restaurant interested in moving in.
Cucinatti said he does not yet know how much the theater project will cost.
He also declined to disclose the cost of the medical care building. Work on it has started and it will be leased by Heywood Healthcare, which operates Heywood Hospital, Athol Hospital, Heywood Medical Group and The Quabbin Retreat.
Cucinatti said the facility will host Tully Family Medicine and Heywood Urgent Care. Michael Grimmer, the chief operating officer at Athol Hospital and vice president of service support at Heywood Hospital, said the 7,600-square-foot facility at 81 Reservoir Drive will likely support Dr. Elizabeth Nottleson and three advanced practitioners. He said Nottleson has worked in Phillipston for years and has outgrown her space there.
Grimmer said Heywood has been working on this project for “the better part of a year” and he hopes the building will open in August. He also said there is a similar practice that opened in Gardner in January 2016.
“We had an overwhelming response to it and there was obviously a need,” he said. “The first day we had 20 patients, which is almost unheard of.”