CINEMARK TO OPEN NEW, 16-SCREEN MOVIE THEATER FRIDAY.

Byline: CHARLES F. BOSTWICK Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- Palmdale will get its first new movie theater in 16 years: a 16-screen stadium-style seating multiplex operated by Texas-based Cinemark, the same company that operates Antelope Valley's four other theaters.

Cinemark at Antelope Valley Mall will open Friday in a newly constructed building outside the mall, where Cinemark's 10-screen existing theater will be closed and replaced with shops.

``The High Desert area has been home to many of our theaters over the years, and we are proud to announce our newest addition in Palmdale at Antelope Valley Mall,'' said Alan Stock, president of Cinemark USA Inc.

Several pre-grand opening activities, all by invitation only, include a military appreciation event on Wednesday, Cinemark said.

Cinemark USA Inc. operates 399 theaters with 4,466 screens in 37 states and 13 foreign countries, mainly in Mexico, South and Central America. On the same day it opens the new Palmdale theater, the firm will open a 16-screen multiplex in Victorville.

The local 59,249-square-foot Cinemark theater, along with a Hilton hotel and new restaurants approved by city officials last year, represent the final build-out of the 16-year-old mall, according to owners Forest City Development. The theater's construction was held up by months over objections from neighbors, who also opposed the 107-room hotel -- permitted to be about 7 feet taller than the city's 45-foot limit.

Residents in the semirural neighborhoods north and west of the mall said the hotel would intrude on their privacy and the theater would bring nighttime glare, noise and crime, and add traffic on narrow roads that are privately owned and maintained.

City planners opposed the neighbors' appeal, saying the 1.35-million-square-foot mall as it exists now -- including the new theater and other additions -- is 500,000 square feet smaller than the one planned in the late 1980s and studied in an environmental impact report.