Sega Plans Entertainment Center In Seattle -- Virtual-Reality Rides To Be Offered At Downtown Complex

Virtual-reality rides will come to downtown Seattle next summer when video-game giant Sega opens its largest interactive-entertainment center in the United States, about 15 miles from archrival Nintendo of America's Redmond headquarters.

Sega Enterprises USA, a subsidiary of the Japan-based company, has leased 27,000 square feet in the $50 million NikeTown complex at Sixth and Seventh avenues and Pike Street.

Sega will take up the ground floor of a building that will also contain a 16-screen Cineplex Odeon theater complex and a 400-car underground parking garage. The theaters and Sega center are expected to open next summer.

A second building to the west will house NikeTown and a Planet Hollywood restaurant, scheduled to open next spring.

The complex, unofficially dubbed the NikeTown project by many, now has a name - the Meridian - said the company behind it, Told Development Co. of suburban Minneapolis. With its entertainment emphasis, the complex is seen as a major boost for downtown nightlife and other redevelopment projects in Seattle's retail core.

A large Virgin Music store is expected to open next year in the

vacant I. Magnin building nearby.

Sega's plans for Seattle call for the latest in video games, motion simulators and virtual-reality rides, which use computer graphics and movies to create the illusion of space and movement.

Its booming indoor centers in Japan are known for rides such as interactive roller-coaster simulations, video bumper cars and virtual-reality plane rides.

"We haven't built facilities of this dimension outside of Japan," said Al Stone, president of Sega Enterprises USA.

Although the centers are designed to be family-oriented, some games have violent action, primarily martial-arts battles.

"If you're not into that, there'll be plenty of other options for you," said Terry Tang, spokeswoman for California-based Sega Enterprises USA.

Nintendo, which focuses on the home video-game market, was approached as a potential tenant for the Meridian but wasn't interested, Told developer Bob Cunningham said.

While sales have sagged in the home-products side of the video-game industry, Sega has been building indoor high-technology theme parks - typically more than 40,000 square feet - and smaller entertainment centers at a fast clip in the Far East and Europe.

It has four amusement parks and more than 1,000 smaller centers in Japan and says it plans to open 150 parks and entertainment centers in North America within the next five years.

In the United States, Sega has a high-tech video arcade, with giant screens and motion simulators, called VirtuaLand at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. It also operates an interactive amusement center at Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla., and just opened an entertainment center in downtown Indianapolis.

Cunningham said having entertainment-oriented tenants in place helped land Sega. Another plus was that Stone knows downtown Seattle. Stone was an executive at Nintendo of America until three years ago.

Sega's entertainment ventures represent the fastest-growing sector of the company, making up about 30 percent of its worldwide revenues, Stone said. The company is the largest operator of amusement centers in the world.