Ipic movie theatre full#

But for movie-hungry locals in the city, IPIC offers both convenience and exclusivity-they no longer have to make the schlep to Boca, Boynton or West Delray. Yes, the theater will tie up traffic on the congested Fifth and Atlantic intersection. We bring a bulk when the seasonal guys are gone.” The peak season for movie theaters is summertime. Our position is, we’re going to bring people to this town at the times when its slowest. “They just didn’t want any further growth. “It doesn’t matter what was all about, some people were going to fight it,” Hashemi says. But IPIC has already been a boon to the local economy, bringing up to 600 construction jobs and more than 250 staff positions to the community. When IPIC won the RFP for the space from the Community Redevelopment Agency, no-growthers voiced their concerns, and for three years the project was mired in permitting hell. In short, it meets the hype, though not everyone shared the expectation.

Ipic movie theatre full#

Though this IPIC doesn’t have an in-house restaurant, visitors can sit in the lobby and order food and drinks from an award-winning chef the sleek space includes a handful of swinging hammock chairs and a full bar. On a wall in the lobby, vivid swatches of living Spanish moss emerge from holes like the remnants of a buried forest. More than a dozen artists were commissioned to create site-specific work for the exteriors and interiors of the theater. Outside the entrance from the garage, a sprawling mural bears IPIC’s slogan-“Change the Way You See Everything”-amid a collage of classic movie posters. It is the first cinema approved within the city limits in 40 years.Įase and comfort, the pillars of Hashemi’s mission for IPIC, are evident before you walk through the door: Hundreds of parking spots are available at the attached garage, and when you validate your ticket inside, it costs only a dollar for three and a half hours. In March, IPIC Delray Beach opened its doors in the new Offices 4th and 5th project, a multistory, mixed-use complex in the former Delray Beach Public Library space. In-theater dining is accessible with the push of a button embedded in the table, and server ninjas swoop in with orders of artisanal cocktails and gourmet finger food.īoca Raton audiences have been enjoying IPIC since the brand’s Mizner Park debut in 2012, and now Delray filmgoers finally have an IPIC of their own. Complimentary popcorn is provided with every ticket purchase. The leather seats recline, and each one is equipped with a blanket, pillow and movable table. The theaters are intimate, with eight screens or so, and with a few dozen seats per screen. Since their launch in Milwaukee in 2007, IPIC cinemas have run counter to the bigger-is-better ethos of the average multiplex. He created, and later sold, Muvico, taking inspiration from the grand movie palaces of the ‘20s and ‘30s, with their gilded architecture and themed interiors.īut if Muvico raised the bar for upscale moviegoing, his next and current venture, IPIC, has lifted it further skyward. A self-made businessman with a knack for capturing the zeitgeist, Hashemi would develop a dozen cinemas in the area, and more than 40 across the country. A few years later, he purchased a three-screen cinema in Coral Springs, and was hooked. Settling down in Iowa, he learned English by watching “Sesame Street” and “Three’s Company,” delivered furniture on weekends, worked the night shift at a hotel, obtained a real estate license. After three years of medical school, he fled his birth country on the cusp of its revolution, emigrating to the United States in 1978 with $700 in his pocket, unable to afford med-school tuition. The future cinema CEO originally intended to enter medicine: As a 12-year-old in his native Iran, he witnessed his grandfather have a heart attack, so he wanted to become a heart surgeon. Hamid Hashemi has an origin story that’s right out of the movies. Inside the IPIC CEO’s cinematic journey to the forefront of upscale moviegoing