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Goochland County is one step closer to having a movie theater, but not the regular multi-plex type folks are used to today.

John and Kristina Heidel’s application for rezoning and a conditional use permit for a drive-in theater was recommended for approval unanimously at the Planning Commission’s January 15 meeting.

Plans call for the theater to be built on a 10-acre parcel in Hadensville Village on the west side of Old Fredericksburg Road about a quarter mile north of Broad Street Road in Byrd Magisterial District north of the Hadensville Fire Station.

John Heidel said he has been working on the project for the last three and a half years.

“I’ve had this idea forever,” he said in an interview at his home in Sandy Hook last week.

Heidel, 39, an entrepreneur who most recently ran a dry cleaning business in Richmond, said he remembered the day he walked into Goochland Planning Department Director Robert Hammond’s office and announced his intentions.

“I want to bring a drive-in theater to Goochland,” he told Hammond, according to his recollection.

“He’s a very enthusiastic individual,” said Hammond, who said planning staff saw no major problems with the application.

Hammond said the planning department would offer a few recommendations when the application goes before the board of supervisors for a public hearing.

Chief among those is making sure that there is adequate “stacking” space for cars waiting at the ticket booth, so that cars waiting to get into the theater don’t back up onto Old Fredericksburg Road, said Hammond.

Hammond said the department may also recommend that the entrance road be paved all the way to the ticket booth.

“We’ll mention these minor changes, but it sounds very workable to us,” said Hammond.

“You’ve got to start with a great idea,” said Heidel, “and then you have to have a passion about it.”

Heidel said hopes to open his Goochland Drive-In June 5 in order not to miss the summer season.

“That’s pretty optimistic,” Heidel admitted.

Hammond agreed it was an ambitious goal.

Eventually Heidel envisions the 340-space theater being open each year from April to October, for three or four days each week. Standard fare would be a double feature, starting at dusk, he said.

Unlike the old drive-ins of the 50s and 60s, sound would be transmitted to each car’s FM radio, doing away with the hundreds of poles that dotted the old theaters.

But Heidel said he would have some of the old-style speakers available for the nostalgia value.

There are still 400 or so drive-in theaters in the United States, said Heidel, the nearest one in Fork Union. In the 50s and 60s there were more than 6,000, he said.

Goochland once had one on Route 6, called, appropriately enough, the Patterson Drive In, right on the border with Henrico County.

Heidel said he sees the Goochland Drive-In as “filling an entertainment void in Goochland County.”

Heidel said he plans to offer the location as a place to hold antique car shows and to partner with schools and non-profits for fund raising activities.

The idea already enjoys widespread support it would seem, as the board room was filled with supporters of the drive-in theater at the January 15 meeting.

“I would love for this to become a landmark in Goochland,” said Heidel, who said bringing the drive-in to Goochland is now his full-time job.

For more information, visit their Web site at http://www.goochlanddriveintheater.com.