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Topic: What's the latest theatre to close or open you have heard about? (part 2)
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 10-14-2017 12:54 AM
In quite possibly the WTF move of the year, somebody is re-opening the North Grand 5 at North Grand Mall in Ames, IA.
Built hilariously obsolete in the first place, the slope 5-plex was opened by Central States in 1996, only to find itself competing with a new Cinemark a couple years later. Cinemark eventually took it over and operated it as a dollar house until they closed it in 2014. The new operators, who have two other cinemas, plan to dress up the pig with recliners and new wall treatments in the lobby, as well as a "fake fireplace".
Cinemark is currently in the process of ruining Movies 12 by adding recliners, something planned prior to this announcement.
Story, with quotes from the adorably naive new owners, below.
Source: Ames Tribune
quote:
A million-dollar luxury movie theater is the first major addition to the North Grand Mall after it was purchased by three central Iowa developers last year.
North Grand Cinema will move into the site formerly occupied by North Grand 5 in the rear of the mall.
Co-owner Diane Akin said she and her husband, Lee, said the redecorating will run north of $1 million before opening to the public sometime in November before the holiday season.
“We’re not doing major reconstruction, just major redecorating,” Diane Akin said.
North Grand 5, a second-run theater, closed in 2014 after 18 years in business when its lease expired.
The foyer of the theater will eschew North Grand 5′s purple and green color scheme for a darker, wood-accented decor complete with a fake fireplace. It’ll feature a beer and wine bar, along with sandwiches and standard movie theater snacks.
The showing rooms will have about half of the seating as North Grand 5, with the smallest auditoriums only having 88 seats. The cinema will instead have recliner seating which guests reserve online or at the box office. The screens will also have the newest projection and audio systems on the market, Akin said.
Akin said she wanted to open a theater in Ames to be closer to her parents, and to return to the Iowa State University community. Akin, along with her parents and some of her siblings, are ISU alumni.
“My mom and dad graduated with their Ph.Ds at the same time my little sister graduated with her undergraduate degree,” she said.
The Akins operate a single-screen theater in Elkader and a six-screen theater in Prairie Du Chien, Wis. Akin said the Cinema will be “mom-and-pop” because they’re independent operators, but will carry the latest releases and potentially a few indie films if they so choose.
The Cinema is expected to hire about 20 part-time staffers and assistant managers, then later hire a general manager from that group, Akin said.
North Grand Cinema will open in a market where Cinemark Movies 12 is the only competitor for first-run movies.
Lee Akin said there are enough differences between the two theaters in terms of size and feel that they won’t be competing with each other too intensely.
“We don’t have a lot of experience working with one large competitor, but we believe that the Ames market is large enough to service both theaters easily,” he said. “I think there’s room for us both.”
North Grand Cinema’s announcement comes more than eight months after a trio of developers in Ames and Des Moines purchased the mall last December, promising to revitalize the shopping center and add more retailers.
The mall also announced it will renovate the building’s exterior in the near future during a press conference Thursday.
Renderings provided to the Tribune show several of the major entrances built out with tall, wood-paneled accents and gray, cemented panels along parts of the wall.
Ed Kaizer, asset manager for the Mall, said he and the owners are still working to finalize the designs and secure permits from the city. There is no set time-line for the renovations, but Kaizer said the mall hopes to start construction by next month.
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 11-03-2017 12:08 PM
Questions remain as Westboro’s only movie theater closes doors
WESTBORO – The only movie theater in town has closed, and no one seems to know who owns it.
Regal Westborough Stadium 12 closed its doors Sunday. The movie theater’s 20-year lease was to expire Nov. 21. In the agreement, Interstate Theatres Corp. is listed as the tenant, and Westboro SPE LLC is listed as the landlord.
It appears Westboro SPE is a limited liability company that was registered in Delaware but has been administratively dissolved and is no longer authorized to do business in Massachusetts, according to a letter from R. Jackson Pope, counsel for Interstate Theatres, to the town administrator, police chief, fire chief and chief assessor.
“The landlord can’t be found anywhere. It’s interesting that nobody actually owns a $9.3 million property in the middle of town,” Town Manager James J. Malloy said. “I’ve never seen something like this where you have a high-value property and no apparent owner.”
Further, Westboro SPE’s former corporate services firm, law firm and property management firm deny any current relationship with the landlord and cannot or will not provide forwarding or other contact information, Mr. Pope’s letter states.
State corporation records show that Westboro SPE withdrew its registration to do business in Massachusetts in 2007. According to the state records, Westboro SPE appears to be an entity created by Babcock & Brown, an Australian company that went belly up in 2009.
Per terms of the lease, Interstate Theatres paid rent directly to U.S. Bank to amortize what it believed to be Westboro SPE’s purchase money loan on the property. According to the bank, the loan will be satisfied in full with the corporation’s final rent payment, to be paid this week.
U.S. Bank does not have current contact with nor contact information for Westboro SPE, according to the letter.
Mr. Malloy said the town will most likely have to go through standard foreclosure action on the property.
“That gives the opportunity for whoever may have a valid legal claim to the property to assert it. But it doesn’t sound like there’s going to be anyone who does that because I don’t think anyone exists anymore,” Mr. Malloy said. “Essentially, once we go through the foreclosure process, we’ll file with land court and take ownership of the property and then we will put it on sale.”
Mr. Malloy said it will probably take two years, but the town is looking into what it can do to expedite the process.
“As soon as we could, we would love to see it back on the tax roll,” Mr. Malloy said. “We’re going to see if there are any kinds of legal administrative shortcut that we can take to take ownership of it.”
The theater was built in 1997 on a 29-acre parcel.
With a large population with Indian heritage in Westboro, Northboro and Shrewsbury, the Regal Westboro Stadium 12 had been programming three or four Hindi-language and other English-subtitled “Bollywood” films from India alongside Hollywood blockbusters for years.
Upendra Mishra, publisher of Waltham-based India New England News, said it’s sad to see the theater close.
“The Indian population is really, really growing very fast in that area,” Mr. Mishra said. “This location was drawing people, not only from that area but even from other parts of Massachusetts, because they used to get good movies.”
According to the letter from Interstate Theatres, the theater closed early to allow removal of personal property.
The corporation has been receiving statements for and paying the real estate taxes per the terms of the lease, but effective Nov. 22, the corporation will no longer be responsible for such taxes, according to Mr. Pope’s letter.
“Until time ran out, Regal remained hopeful that (the landlord) would be located and Regal would have an opportunity to reach a suitable arrangement by which to become profitable and remain as tenant in the theatre, but, unfortunately, that did not happen,” Mr. Pope wrote in the letter.
http://www.telegram.com/news/20171102/questions-remain-as-westboros-only-movie-theater-closes-doors
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-15-2017 11:40 AM
quote: IndieWire
Cinefamily Closes For Good, Permanently Tarnished by Sexual Harassment Allegations and Debt
Cinefamily’s temporary closure is now permanent. Following the August resignations of executive director Hadrian Belove and board member Shadie Elnashai amid sexual harassment allegations, the nonprofit West Hollywood theater will not reopen, concluding a 10-year run.
A statement posted November 14 on its website states that the decision was the result of a months-long independent investigation. “While no victims emerged to corroborate the allegation of rape widely circulated in an anonymous email, the investigation identified serious concerns, including breaches of acceptable behavior alleged to have happened at Cinefamily offices and events; a climate that discouraged employees and volunteers from reporting distressing workplace incidents and/or made them feel unheard if they did so; and critical lapses in communication from the executive management and the board,” the statement reads. “We feel strongly that we have made the right decision.”
The statement also references Cinefamily’s “crippling debt,” which combined with the reputation-destroying allegations to form the “irreparable” final blow. A transition team will help the organization tie up all loose legal and monetary matters as it departs Fairfax Avenue’s Silent Movie Theatre, which the landlord will renovate.
Until recently, the board included Ted Hope, head of production at Amazon Original Movies; “The Lego Movie” co-writer and co-director Phil Lord; and “21 Jump Street” scribe Michael Bacall. Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson, who co-founded Women of Cinefamily, exited the board August 23.
When it was established in 1942, the Silent Movie Theatre was a perplexing addition to the Hollywood independent theater scene since it arrived 15 years after films began featuring sound. Nonetheless, it became one of the city’s best-attended arthouse venues.
At least one recurring block of Cinefamily programming will return elsewhere: La Collectioneuse, a monthly “cinematic saloon” for Francophiles, will bring a dance party and Philippe Puicouyoul’s 1981 feature “The Brunette and I” to Zebulon next Wednesday, November 22.
Doesn't say what the landlord has in mind, specifically whether it's going to remain operating as a movie theater. The new Alamo Drafthouse that will be opening in LA soon is going to make the market that much more competitive for arthouse/repertory movie theaters.
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-11-2017 10:43 AM
The 1964 Park Terrace in Charlotte, NC is closing: Charlotte Observer
quote:
Beloved movie theater at Park Road Shopping Center closing soon
BY KATHERINE PERALTA AND ELY PORTILLO
UPDATED DECEMBER 08, 2017 04:40 PM
The Park Terrace Stadium movie theater will close its doors after more than half a century at the Park Road Shopping Center, the Observer has learned.
The historic Park Terrace, known for showing independent and foreign films, is Charlotte’s second oldest movie theater, after the Manor on Providence Road. Park Terrace opened in 1964 and underwent a $2 million renovation in 1996 that included an expansion from three screens to six.
Several people familiar with the theater confirmed its pending closure. The theater will officially close Dec. 17, according to a person familiar with the move who asked not to be named because the plans have not yet been made public.
It is unclear what will become of the 21,000-square-foot building at Park and Woodlawn roads. A representative from Edens, the Columbia-based firm that owns Park Road Shopping Center, could not be reached for comment Friday.
A Regal spokesman could not be reached for comment.
The Park Road center was Charlotte’s first open-air retail center when it opened in 1956.
Edens bought Park Road Shopping Center in 2011 for $82 million. Since then, the complex has undergone extensive renovations and has gotten several new tenants, including J. Crew Mercantile, Burton’s Grill, Urban Cookhouse, Chopt, Amelie’s and Core Power Yoga.
Rising rents at Park Road have also prompted several longtime tenants to relocate. A watch shop called A Time n’ Place, for instance, moved from Park Road to another spot on Woodlawn in 2015 because of rising rent. Toys & Co. moved all its operations that year to its other location in Cotswold.
Edens also operates the Myers Park Center, Atherton Mill and Kenilworth Commons.
In 2014, a 50-year time capsule commemorating the opening of Park Terrace was opened at the theater to throngs of onlookers. Among other artifacts were pictures of Charlotteans and their predictions about 2014, a letter from then-Mayor Stan Brookshire and newspaper clippings.
Park Terrace was previously run by Consolidated Theatres until Regal Entertainment Group bought the Charlotte-based movie company in 2008. Locally, Regal also owns the Manor, Phillips Place and Stonecrest, among other theaters.
This month, the British company Cineworld Group PLC confirmed its plans to buy Tennessee-based Regal for $3.6 billion. The deal is expected to close in early 2018.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 01-11-2018 01:03 PM
quote: Mark Ogden
In a blow to New York City filmgoers and the arthouse world in general, the Upper West Side’s five-screen Lincoln Plaza Cinema will close next month
It's closing on January 28th. And the Sunshine on Houston Street looks like it's closing on January 20th as they haven't posted any screening times beyond that. NYC has now lost 31% of its theaters and and 16.54% of the net screen count since 2001. And due to closings and lounge seating, we've lost 28% of the seats since July of 2012.
On the upside, as I previously posted, they'll be a new multiplex in Flushing, Queens, scheduled for late 2018, but probably opening in 2019; the Nitehawk Prospect Park 7 (nee Pavillion, nee the Sanders) should be re-opening in Park Slope, Brooklyn soon and there's a new Regal 14-screener under construction at Delancey and Essex street.
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