Movi­eTowne, the cin­e­ma and leisure com­plex at In­vaders' Bay, is plan­ning to open its door in San Fer­nan­do and in Guyana, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the com­pa­ny. The Movi­eTowne project is ex­pect­ed to cost over TT $300 mil­lion and will rev­o­lu­tionise the land­scape of en­ter­tain­ment in the South­land and will in­clude: an 8-10 screen cine­plex; shop­ping mall; restau­rants; a live en­ter­tain­ment are­na; an an­chor su­per cen­tre JTA Su­per­mar­ket and many oth­er at­trac­tions.

The fran­chise de­vel­op­ers of Mul­ti­cin­e­mas Trinidad Lim­it­ed have en­tered in­to an 18-acre re­al es­tate joint ven­ture de­vel­op­ment with an­oth­er well known lo­cal busi­ness en­ti­ty, the JT Al­lum Group of Com­pa­nies, based in San Fer­nan­do. This project, which will soon break ground, will mark Movi­eTowne's fourth lo­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It will be sim­i­lar in scope and scale to the flag­ship Movi­eTowne en­ter­tain­ment and shop­ping com­plex at In­vaders' Bay, Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing on be­half of the JT Al­lum Group, Christo­pher Mack (Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor) said: "As a busi­ness group that has op­er­at­ed in the South of Trinidad for over 70 years, we are ex­cit­ed about bring­ing a new evo­lu­tion to the en­ter­tain­ment and shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence to South­ern­ers that is ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed. It will be a world class de­vel­op­ment that would al­low fam­i­lies to spend a safe and en­joy­able time with the most mod­ern and so­phis­ti­cat­ed of ameni­ties.

"Our JTA Su­per­mar­kets chain will be es­tab­lish­ing its fifth lo­ca­tion, which will be the largest and most mod­ern su­per­mar­ket in Trinidad. We have es­tab­lished a strong brand over the years which we in­tend to strength­en and to con­tin­u­al­ly add val­ue to our gen­er­a­tions of loy­al cus­tomers in the South." Since its in­cep­tion in 2002, Movi­eTowne has grown in size and stature and now has three lo­ca­tions in Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas and To­ba­go with a to­tal of 22 screens.

The cin­e­ma chain is al­so in pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions with de­vel­op­ers in East Trinidad to de­vel­op a fifth lo­ca­tion to bring the pop­u­lar en­ter­tain­ment and shop­ping com­plex to the area. As part of its Caribbean ex­pan­sion dri­ve Movi­eTowne will al­so be tak­ing the con­cept of first-world en­ter­tain­ment to the Re­pub­lic of Guyana, the first Caribbean coun­try out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go. The of­fi­cial launch cer­e­mo­ny took place in George­town in late 2011 and was at­tend­ed by Pres­i­dent Jagdeo and oth­er Guyana Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. The mega project will start con­struc­tion this year.

Asked if he thought the tim­ing was right to fur­ther in­vest in Trinidad & To­ba­go and the Caribbean giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, Movi­eTowne chair­man Derek Chin Chin said: "Our peo­ple and the re­gion will not rise out of this slump by sit­ting around and com­plain­ing. In or­der to fos­ter growth and stim­u­late busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty again, the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors have to per­se­vere and keep go­ing with their ex­pan­sion and new en­ter­prise plans that were in the pipeline."

He con­tin­ued by adding: "This in it­self will stim­u­late the econ­o­my and cre­ate ex­cite­ment and con­fi­dence among our cit­i­zens and can have a pos­i­tive ef­fect by gen­er­at­ing em­ploy­ment and busi­ness trade ac­tiv­i­ties."