It stays cozy at the Rhine bend

Cinema Basel rejected two multiplex cinema projects at the same time The region on the Rhine knee will have to make do without a large cinema for years. Alternatives are neither planned nor are other locations being seriously evaluated. Last weekend, the Basel electorate rejected a government bill by a two-thirds majority that proposed upgrading the Heuwaage site near the SBB railroad station. There would have been room for a private 40 million building by architects Herzog & de Meuron with 2,300 cinema seats. However, this has now come to nothing. The second project in Pratteln was already buried by the landowner a month ago. Although planning permission had been granted for a multiplex with 14 screens and 3,260 seats, the initiators had not managed to find investors in three years. Although the initiators still had until the end of November 2003, the landowner submitted a new planning application in October - for the winter camp of Circus Gasser Olympia. The initiators have not been heard from since then.
(mk)