Owners End Lease with Towson Commons Theater to Make Way for Renovation

With news this week that AMC Theatres is of , the troubled retail complex is losing its original anchor tenant as its new owners look to renovate the property.

The Commons' owner, a subsidiary of Horsham, PA-based Capmark Finance, terminated its lease with AMC. The movie theater chain's last day at the Commons is May 15.

"We're going to be looking for tenants to backfill that space," said David Baird, a managing broker for Capmark's brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Baird declined to comment on who those tenants might be, though he did confirm that Towson University for classrooms and offices. Baird said his firm has been "very quietly" shopping Towson Commons around to a number of other tenants that "span the spectrum from office to retail."

Baird said that after AMC moves out, crews will get to work knocking down walls. The facade of the Commons will remain unchanged, and no square footage will be added.

"We are staying within the existing footprint," he said.

Kyodai Rotating Sushi Bar, the lone remaining street-level tenant, will not be affected.

Towson Commons opened in 1992 with 100,000 square feet of retail space and 222,000 square feet of office space attached to an 882-space parking garage. The office space has been fully leased and nothing will be changing there, Baird told the Times.

Western Development Inc. bought the property in 2005 with an eye to redevelop it and add ground-floor shopping space. That never materialized, and Western Development later defaulted on $58.7 million in loans from Capmark Finance. Capmark foreclosed, and bought the Commons through a subsidiary at its for $28.5 million. After a technical hold-up, a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge in February.

That tumultuous history makes Nancy Hafford, executive director of the Towson Chamber of Commerce, optimistic but realistic.

"If this really ends up happening, I'll be thrilled to death," she said. "If it ends up nothing being there, then I'll be extremely frustrated."

The property houses 85 percent of Towson's empty retail space, Hafford said, and its looming presence on York Road needs to change.

"If they're encouraging [the movie theater] to move out, they must have something up their sleeves," she said. "I would assume the only reason they're doing that is that they've got something they're working on."

Though the move was not terribly surprising, some local officials have been surprised by Capmark's lack of communication.

Hafford found out about the movie theater leaving when a reporter informed her. County Councilman David Marks has yet to meet with the property's owners.

"I'm just amazed that they have never reached out to me, and so many key players in Towson haven't a clue what's going on with that property,"  Marks said. "This isn't the way to build consensus around projects."

The other reality of Capmark's attempt to revitalize the facility is that Towson will be without a movie theater for the first time since 1992.

One is planned for the long-stalled Towson Circle III project, but until then movie lovers will have to trek to the Regal cinema in Hunt Valley, the AMC cinema in Owings Mills or The Senator Theatre in Govans to get their fill.

"I don't know, honestly, how popular these are for people who live in Towson. I can't tell you the last time I was at one of the theaters there," said Ed Kilcullen, a Towson Manor Village resident and a past president of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations. However, "I think theaters tend to be kind of economic engines. And people who go to these go to dinner before or after so it does spur some economic activity."

Meanwhile, the teenagers who create crowds at the York Road and Pennsylvania Avenue intersection after Towson Town Center closes will likely start looking for somewhere else to go, meaning there will be less Baltimore County and Maryland Transit Administration police presence needed there.

"A lot of people are concerned about the amount of police activity there and just the image that it portrays," Kilcullen said. "That anybody driving through Towson, coming down York Road sees multiple police cars there, it doesn't give a good impression of the safety in Towson."