One of the final looming questions about the new Breckenridge Village (10301 N. Rodney Parham Road) redevelopment was answered on Thursday with the announcement that a new movie theater concept, known as Film Alley, will open in the West Little Rock shopping center in 2025.
The concept is from Texas-based Schulman Theatres, Inc. and it’s described in a press release as a movie entertainment center featuring “a full redemption arcade, eight lanes of duckpin bowling, the 5S Rock Bar, and eight dine-in movie auditoriums with heated recliner seating, including one premium large format auditorium with 4K laser projection and DTS-X Immersive Sound.” Schulman Theatres, a family-owned operation established in 1926, the release says, has seven locations in Texas.
The former 12-screen Regal UA Breckenridge Theater, which closed in January 2023, will soon undergo renovations and Film Alley Little Rock is anticipated to open in early 2025.
The multimillion dollar renovation of Breckenridge Village was announced in 2022 after a new ownership group comprised of The Kelley Group, the Keet Family, Dale V. “Bo” Briggs, the Nashville-based Bodnar Group and others purchased the property. Several new restaurants were soon announced for the center, including new locations for Waldo’s Chicken & Beer, The Root Cafe, Flyway Brewing and Hot Springs’ DeLuca’s Pizzeria.
The renovation at Breckenridge suffered a setback after the complex was hit by the March 31, 2023 EF-3 tornado that devastated parts of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Jacksonville. Some areas of the center were hit harder than others. Loony Bin Comedy Club reopened after several weeks, which included some temporary shows at the former South on Main. A new coffee shop, Neverwhere: Coffee, Comics & Oddities, opened in July. Mt. Fuji, a staple in the complex since the mid-1980s, moved to a newly designed 3,600 square-foot space in the shopping center in November.
Eat My Catfish, one of businesses in the center hardest hit by the tornado, reopened in January after eight months of “major external and internal structural reconstruction.”
The Keet family’s JTJ Restaurants opened their fourth Arkansas location of Waldo’s Chicken & Beer in the shopping center in June. DeLuca’s is slated to open the first week of October, and The Root Cafe will open in the fourth quarter of this year. The new Flyway location is slated for early 2025, the release says.
JTJ Restaurants chairman Jim Keet said plans are underway to apply for a temporary entertainment district designation for the center “which will make Breckenridge Village the place to go in Central Arkansas.”