![]() Sales taxes from its stores contribute significant revenue to the city’s $9 million annual budget.īut ownership gives Balcones Heights more control over Wonderland’s viability and some assurance regarding that revenue, said city leaders in 2021. Since 2009, Crossroads Mall Partners, led by Sid Weiss, has worked to turn the former mall into a retail, medical and entertainment destination. Much of the first floor is occupied by Veterans Administration and University Health clinics and other offices.įor over a year starting in early 2021, the mall served as a central COVID-19 vaccination site supported by University Health. There’s more to come, said Balcones Heights Mayor Suzanne de Leon. “There are just a lot of things that we have interest in.” “We are working on a comprehensive land-use plan to redevelop our master plan that we did in 2009 to utilize property throughout the whole city, Wonderland included,” she said. Though no definitive plans have been set in motion, she said the city has already reinstated talks with VIA Metropolitan Transit that began in 2009 about a transit-oriented development that could include multi-family and additional retail development at the Wonderland site. Still, De Leon said she will miss the Bijou, an adults-only movie theater where Santikos showed foreign and independent films alongside more mainstream fare and where Texas Public Radio hosted its Cinema Tuesdays program.The Bijou is located inside Wonderland of the Americas mall. A sign posted Monday at the Santikos Bijou Cinema Bistro, the long-running arthouse theater inside Wonderland of the Americas mall, has announced its closure, news site MySA reports. The Current was unable to reach Santikos Entertainment for comment. ![]() However, the Bijou no longer appears on the San Antonio-based theater operator's website, which lists 10 other area holdings. Santikos has operated the theater since 2003, devoting some of its screens to foreign and art films while bolstering sales with food and alcohol. It took over after longtime operator Regal Cinemas shuttered the location, which it also operated as an arthouse property. The Bijou's reported closure follows a buying spree by Santikos, which absorbed and reopened two of the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse chain's local outlets. Those theaters now operate as Santikos Westlakes, which began showing movies again last month, and Santikos New Branfuels, which resumed last summer. ![]() The latest turn for the Bijou also comes after an announcement late last year from the city of Balcones Heights that it was spending $5.4 million on a 46% ownership stake in the mall.
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