Malco Theatre’s multimillion-dollar Downtown movie theater has taken another step toward completion.

A $5 million building permit application for the foundation of a new seven-screen movie theater was filed with the city-county Office of Construction Code Enforcement.

Malco Theatres has filed a $9 million building permit application for its seven-screen Downtown theater, shown in this artist's rendering released in August.

(TK Architects)

The Malco project will be located at 45 E. G.E. Patterson St., at the southeast corner of Front Street. It is part of the greater $55 million redevelopment of Central Station, which includes a boutique hotel, apartments, restaurants, retail and significant infrastructure and landscaping improvements to the surrounding South Main area spearheaded by Henry Turley Co. and Community Capital.

The iconic Powerhouse building, which was built more than 100 years ago to provide steam and electrical energy to Central Station, will be converted into a lobby and concessions area for the new theater. Vertical marquee signs are planned to light up the sides of the new building.

The $9 million theater will be a new product type for Malco, with a rooftop screen and lounge, and a two-story movie screen with balcony seating.

In August, the “high-impact” project was awarded a $125,000 grant by the Center City Development Corp. – an amount that was almost double the $65,500 Ghost River Brewing Co. was awarded for their new taproom, which was the largest grant the CCDC had approved prior to that point.

“It will restore the Powerhouse, which is one of the things, we being Downtown architects, have always wanted to see done,” Tony Bologna, whose firm Bologna Consultants is handling the project, told the Daily News at that time. “It’s always come up short to do it as a standalone building because it’s too small.”