New movie store on the way

Although the Blockbuster video store at Banks Station in Fayetteville closed several weeks ago, the store will soon be open again with a new name.

The new store, Movie Trading Company, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Blockbuster and will have a larger variety of media to choose from, said Blockbuster official Terri Murray. Music will be available along with movies and video games for buy, sell, trade and rent, she said.

To bring on the new store, Blockbuster shut down its store entirely to undergo renovations. Murray noted the store was one of its “most profitable” but the company wanted to introduce its newest store format, which will be just the third such rollout in metro Atlanta.

She didn’t know that doing so would technically put the company afoul of the city’s sign ordinance because of two signs the company has no control over.

The Fayetteville City Council gave the company a reprieve Thursday night, deciding not to hold Blockbuster accountable for the inaction of its landlord, the company in Chicago that owns Banks Station, which is ultimately responsible for the sign issue.

Because the store is a part of the shopping center and not an outparcel, city ordinances require that all signs at the shopping center be brought into conformance with the city’s latest sign guidelines or removed, said Jahnee Prince, director of the city’s planning and zoning department. Two of those signs, including the main sign that lists the stores at Banks Crossing, are too tall by the city’s current regulations, Prince said.

Blockbuster officials tried to get their landlord, a company based in Chicago, to bring the offending signs into compliance, but with no luck, Prince said.

Murray said she never would have closed the store if she had known it would cause problems with the city. Prince confirmed that Blockbuster researched the matter before closing the store, but until she did some checking everyone had thought the store was an outparcel and thus technically not a part of the shopping center.

The building is actually a part of the overall shopping center, Prince said. Council ultimately granted the company approval for a new sign on the Movie Trading Company building alone.

“I think it’s the city’s problem to deal with the property owner,” said Mayor Ken Steele before council unanimously ruled in Blockbuster's favor. “It would not be very good for the city to push out a tenant who has been doing business in the community for a number of years. ... It’s really not your problem.”

The new sign meets all other city sign ordinance requirements, Prince said.

The store is slated to re-open May 7, Murray said.