Fairchild Cinemas was expected to do well in its new Queensgate location in Richland when it opened in December 2015.

But it did better than well, and now the company is planning a new 10-screen movie theater next to the Walmart store near the Canyon Lakes neighborhood in Kennewick. It will be in the 2900 block of South Quillan Street, between Quillan and Olsen streets.

There is no set timeline for when construction will begin, said Fairchild Cinemas general manager Mamie Gale.

“We have an idea, but we don’t want to say anything yet because things might change,” she said.

The company said it’s in the design phase for the 8.6-acre site, and a groundbreaking date has not been set.

But the goal is to have the Kennewick facility ready to go sometime in 2018.

“That’s our hope,” Gale said.

Gale expected the Kennewick theater to “be fairly similar to our one at Queensgate.”

The new theater will feature “the premium sound experience of Dolby Atmos, an immersive technology wherein the sound moves around you in three-dimensional space, that makes you feel you’re inside the action,” according to a company press release.

In addition, premium large-format screens also will be installed.

Like Queensgate, the Kennewick theater will offer reserved seating, in which customers can choose their seats online before arriving; luxury leather reclining seats; and entrée meals and locally sourced beer and wine.

The success at Queensgate gave the company confidence to move forward with the Kennewick project, Gale said.

“Not having a premium theater in the Tri-Cities until then, it did what we thought it would,” said Gale, who has worked for the company for 10 years. “It has exceeded what we hoped it would do. We expected great things, and the public has embraced it.”

People are still going to movies, Gale said.

“I would say we haven’t noticed a change in trends,” she said.

But there are more screens in the Tri-Cities than ever before.

There are 24 screens combined for the Pasco and Queensgate Fairchild theaters. There are 12 more at the Kennewick Carmike Cinemas, and another eight screens at Regal Cinemas at Columbia Center. That’s a total of 44.

In the 1990s until around 2000, the Tri-Cities lost triplexes at the Uptown, Columbia Center, Columbia Center North and Clearwater Avenue, at a time when maybe there was an oversaturation of movie theaters.

“I don’t know how the triplexes ever did it,” Gale said. “The studios require in their contracts with theaters to keep movies for a certain period.”

But the population of the Tri-City region has grown enough during the past 15 to 20 years that the bigger multiplexes are handling the volume.

In fact, the Pasco Fairchild operation could possibly see some changes too.

“We are in talks right now about some slight modifications,” Gale said. “But nothing is set in stone.”

Fairchild Cinemas was started by Jeff Fairchild.

He has an eight-screen Fairchild Cinemas Theater in Moses Lake in addition to the 24 screens in Pasco and at Queensgate.

Gale says the company has about 120 employees in the three locations. The new Kennewick theater would add another 40 employees, she said, in addition to giving the company 42 screens in four locations.