Your chance to get dinner and a movie in the same Northeast Cobb seat moved closer to reality Tuesday.

The voted 4-1, with East Cobb's Bob Ott opposed, to approve the rezoning of the Sandy Plains Village Shopping Center and clear the way for Movie Tavern to move in. The decision offers the dated, largely vacant shopping center a new life but exposes neighbors in the Chatsworth subdivision to a 45-foot-tall building just beyond their backyards.

The shopping center along Highway 92 (Woodstock Road) between Sandy Plains and Mabry roads dates to the late 1970s and was built before Chatsworth. It once was home to two anchor stores, Kroger and Stein Mart, but now is only 18 percent leased, said Kevin Moore, an attorney for owner DDR Southeast Sandy Plains.

"To allow a center at this prominent location to go dark pulls down" the community, Moore said. Do you like the idea of Movie Tavern next to the Chatsworth subdivision? Tell us in the comment area below. Modernization of the center requires rezoning from the defunct NS (neighborhood shopping) to the NRC (neighborhood retail center) designation and an anchor tenant to justify the expense. The commissioners approved both in one vote.

DDR will spend $2 million on the renovations, Moore said, and the cost of building the 45,000-square-foot Movie Tavern space will be an additional $4.5 million.

The building will have a maximum of 12 screens and 1,500 seats.

"This is a very exciting concept. I know a lot of hard work and time has been put into this," said Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, whose District 3 includes the site. The NRC zoning doesn't allow movie theaters or buildings taller than 35 feet, so DDR needed variances for Movie Tavern, whose roof will be 40 feet high and whose peak in the front and back will be 45 feet. The former Stein Mart building is less than 25 feet tall.