Showtime! Mark Cuban to open Landmark cinema at Durst’s Via 57 West

It’s showtime for Mark Cuban’s Landmark Theatres, which will open a 30,000-square-foot cinema at Durst’s Via 57 West, its pyramid-shaped rental tower in Midtown West.

The national chain, owned by Cuban and Todd Wagner, plans to have an eight-screen theater up and running by spring of 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported. Outfitted with leather electronic reclining seats, laser projection technology and a full bar made from Italian marble, the theater will also be available for post-screening parties and other events.

“This area was in dire need of a great movie theater,” said Durst Organization president Jonathan Durst, who believes the theater is among the first to open in the area over the past decade. The theater will join American Kennel Club’s dog-care center and Livanos Restaurant Group at the Bjarke Ingels-designed tower, with 709 units, located between West 57th and West 58th streets and 11th and 12th avenues.

Durst was represented in-house by David Neil and Ashea Aaron, as well as by Lee & Associates’ Peter Braus and Richard Kave. Landmark was represented by Brad Schwarz and JP Sutro, also of Lee & Associates.

The art-house theater chain, which owns the Landmark Sunshine on the Lower East Side, had been scouring New York City for spaces ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 square feet, as The Real Deal previously reported.

Cuban, a co-host of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” is reportedly taking on an activist-investor role in Reading International, owner of the Angelika Film Center, the Minetta Lane Theatre and the Orpheum Theatre.

TRD took a tour of the residential component of the building in February. [WSJ] — E.B. Solomont