State-Of-Art Imax Theater To Be Built

The Pacific Science Center announced today that it will be installing a state-of-the-art IMAX 3D theater and expanding its exhibit space.

Partly backed by Boeing, which has contributed $4 million to the center's current gift campaign, it will be called the Boeing IMAX Theater. It will be built on the northeast corner of the center, facing Broad Street and the Space Needle.

The new theater will be separate from the current super-70mm theater, which has been operating for the past 17 years. It also will eventually replace it. The existing IMAX auditorium will become a traveling exhibit space; a new discovery lab will be built adjacent to it and a new wing housing the Ginger and Barry Ackerley Exhibit Gallery will connect the 3D theater to the Science Center.

The new discovery lab will include classrooms, a conference room, prep room and reception area. It will be located north of the current IMAX theater. Estimated cost of construction for the new buildings is $29.1 million; $22 million has been raised. The project's French design architect is Denis Laming.

The new theater comes to Seattle a decade after the Northwest got its first such theater in Vancouver, B.C.

"There will be an incredible difference in screen size," said Francine Feldman, marketing manager of the Pacific Science Center. The current IMAX screen is 37 by 60 feet; the new one will be 60 by 80 feet. The new auditorium, which will seat more than 400 people, will include an elevator, lobby and wheelchair access.

Several years ago, the Science Center showed a primitive IMAX 3D film, "We Are Born of Stars," which was technically much cruder than the process that will soon be installed. The improved system uses two synchronized projectors, polarized glasses (instead of red-and-green glasses that prevent true color photography) and more sophisticated optics and sound systems.

All IMAX movies use a 70mm, 15-perforation film format, the largest in the world. It is more than 10 times the size of a conventional 35mm film frame.

"Groundbreaking on the discovery lab will begin this fall; groundbreaking for the theater is next summer," said Feldman. "The lab is scheduled to open in the spring of 1997. The theater will open in the fall of 1998." The new exhibit hall is scheduled for a 1999 opening.

Although the official announcement was made at a news conference this morning, last October the center received a $600,000 grant from the King County's Arts, Heritage and Science Initiative and indicated it would be building an IMAX 3D theater.

The current IMAX auditorium opened with "To Fly" in 1979. Since that time, Science Center officials estimate that more than 4.5 million visitors have been through the doors to witness such popular IMAX productions as "Beavers," "The Dream Is Alive" and "Blue Planet." Annual average attendance here is now 390,000.

Attendance at the Science Center has gone from 400,000 visitors in 1980 to more than 1 million last year. Memberships have jumped from 2,800 to more than 31,000 during the same period.