The Tavernier Twin Cinema launched in 1980 just a year after the shopping center housing the venue was established as the Tavernier Towne Mall. The complex, however, was most commonly referred to as a “shopping center” and its genesis was as a shopping center in 1976. The venue operated from 1980 to 2000, assuming, on a 20-year lease as the Tavernier Twin Cinema and then as the Tavernier Towne Cinemas from 2000 into 2002 when it closed to expand on July, 2002 by operators - then Sam and Ayman Nekhaila.
After its almost 22 years as a twin cinema, the venue re-emerged in July of 2003 as a five-screen operation retaining the Tavernier Towne Cinemas moniker. On December 13, 2014, it was called the B&B Tavernier Cinema 5 operated by the B&B Circuit.
B&B closed it and the rest of its operation on March 16, 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened but purportedly did not ever reconnect with its audience closing at the end of its showtime schedule on February 20, 2022. It soon continued as an independent thereafter taken on by Sean and Sam Nekhaila who returned to the venue. They reopened on March 1, 2022 as the Tavernier Cinema 5.
This venue appears to have launched as the Cinema Twin on September 22, 1972 with “Joe Kidd” and they got the second screen ready for showtimes beginning on November 3, 1972. Then it became the Cinema IV on September 16, 1983. In December of 1990, it became the Cinema VI. On May 20, 1994, it became Cobb Circuit’s Cobb Cinema VI.
On June 12, 1997, Cobb was acquired by Regal and the theatre changed to the Regal Cinema VI. In 2001, that name was fine tuned to the Regal Cinema Key West 6. The circuit would then lose the “6” becoming the Regal Key West. The theatre closed twice. Once for Hurricane Irma which damaged the venue on September 17, 2017 apparently relaunching on April 20, 2019. It closed again for the COVID-19 pandemic on March 16, 2020. It would reopen later that year closing again on October 8, 2020 until another reopening in 2021.
The unwieldy-named Sidedoor Westside Cinema was Marathon’s first movie house launching June 2, 1989 with “Major League.” The tiny cinema was located next to the Sidedoor Lounge and sharing its name upon launching. The venue shortened its name to the West Side (now two words) Cinema in 1993 until closing in 1995. In 1995, the Marathon Community Theatre bought the property converting the lounge into a live venue for stage plays and other events.
The cinema was reopened by the theatre group as the Marathon Community Cinema after more than six months of closure with “Goldeneye” on November 17, 1995. In 2006, the cinema was listed as the Marathon Community Theatre still showing Hollywood films. It then went with the shortened, Marathon Cinema, nameplate until its closure on March 15, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic after showings of “The Call of the Wild.” The closing was said to be permanent.
However, the operation continued with a Grand Opening and new folks reverting to the Marathon Community Cinema nameplate on February 12, 2021 with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The venue was still operational in 2022 open four days a week with contemporary cinema and some repertory titles.
Major and Mrs. Robert Duncan launched the Cinemorada in December of 1955. It had Simplex projection with stereo sound. The $147,000 theater then suffered $45,000 in damages during Hurricane Donna ion September 13, 1960. Repairs were made with a reopening and open house on October 28, 1960. The Duncans offered the operation for sale in 1962 without a taker. It was, however, leased on Sundays beginning on September 30, 1962 to the Island Community Church for services. The theatre, however, closed in bankruptcy before year’s end and was offered in a foreclosure sale without a buyer in 1963.
The theater was sold at a steep loss at a forced auction on March 3, 1964 for just $41,000. Peter Joyce was the venue’s final operator of the Cinemorada venue refreshing it in 1972 and it was still in operation - though closing - in 1974. (“Vanishing Wilderness” is the last advertised show on April 3, 1974.) The Island Community Church became the sole owner thereafter after receiving a $200,000 gift in 1974 to take on the venue full-time. The main building looked similar to the way it did when the theatre launched at 83250 Overseas Highway in the 2020s.
For 24-plus years this venue was known as the California Club Theatre because of its location in the mall of that same name. The California Club Mall appears to have opened in 1982. Muvico then announced its $2.8 million theater addition to the Mall to be opened in 1987. The plan was delayed but its cost (said to be $1.2 million higher than an average six-plex due to extra equipment and upgraded seating for the technology-centered venue) led to an impressive venue worth waiting for. The California Club 6 Theatre opened on October 6, 1988 with a soft launch featuring “Altered States” in 70mm, “THX 1138,” “Aliens,” “Indiana Jones,” and “Star Trek.” Its Grand Opening celebration continued with normally-priced films and concessions the next day.
For a very brief period, it was known as the Cineluxe 6 Theater beginning on Christmas Day 2012 and closing permanently just 10 months later on October 24, 2013 at the expiry of a 25-year leasing period.
Architectural plans were drawn in 1963 by famed theater architect Robert E. Collins for the Florida State Theatres circuit. A 1963 picture of Florida State Theatre executive Harry Botwick shows him holding the Collins' drawings.
Samuel M. Puder of South Miami was the architect of the original Loew’s 167th project (sketch in photos.) The mural work and interior design were Rochester-based Patrick Casey and Joseph Schuler. It opened as the circuit’s 114th theater.
In 1985, Gen-Star took on the venue under the name of Gen-Star’s 167th Twin Theatre. Gen-Star also operated the Kendall, and Bay Harbor at that time. In February of 1986, Wometco took on the venue as its final operator under the name of Wometco’s 167th Twin Theatre. It closed with that name on September 7, 1990 with “Air America” and “Pump Up the Volume.” The theatre was said to have been demolished in 1992 for a new-build Pep Boys garage.
The Skylake Twin Cinema closed February 13, 1997 as a sub-run discount house with “Set it Off” and “Daylight” on Screen I and “Space Jam” and “Jingle All the Way” on Screen II. At that point, the mall had 48 vacancies in its 71 storefronts and the cinema was able to opt out of its lease early at the 15-year mark.
It may well be but the local paper reports that the Valentine’s 1982 incident occurred at the Plitt Sunny Isles Twin Theatre and that the movie the man and his wife were on their way to attending did play at the Sunny Isles Twin on Valentine’s Day, 1982. The jury award payout occurred in June of 1986.
In 1978, Henry Plitt formed Plitt Theatre Holdings with some partners to buy ABC`s Southern Circuit of theaters includng ABC’s Florida State Theatres for $49 million including the Southern Isles Twin. Plitt operated the venue from December of 1978 until closure on February 2, 1984 as as Plitt’s Sunny Isles Twin.
It reopened as an independent as the Sunny Isles Twin the next day. It closed on March 4, 1984 with “Boarding School” and “Angelo, My Love” placing a “Closed for Remodeling: Returning on May 3d.” But the venue thought better of the plan making the March 4th closure permanent. Following its conversion to retail operationes, the Sunny Isles Twin theatre was in the news one last time in 1986 as Plitt lost a $1 million lawsuit for a 1982 injury incident in its parking lot.
The Holiday Theatre closed at the end of its 20-year leasing period on July 5, 1990 with “The Hunt for Red October” splitting the single-screener with “Miami Blues.”
The Intracoastal Mall on the waterfront of North Miami Beach opened in 1987 with discount clothing chains T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s, grocer Winn-Dixie, and a General Cinema multiplex theater as its anchors. Restaurants included Shooters and a Ruth Chris Steak House. The General Cinema Intracoastal 8 launched with “Orphans,” “Deadline,” “Killing Time,” “When You Were Here,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “The Sicilian” on October 23, 1987.
Ten years later, General Cinema was watching aggressive building of new destination theatre complexes in the “megaplex era” devour aging 6-8 screen multiplexes. Unfortunately for the circuit, they held a huge portfolio of such multiplexes and they witnessed their death in slow motion. GCC’s Intracoastal was the very definition of an aging and uncomfortable multiplex. The circuit closed all eleven of its remaining Florida locations on “(GCC) Black Friday” September 29, 2000 along with 13 others (five in Atlanta, three in New Orleans, as well as Seattle, Albuquerque, Houston, Raleigh and Columbus, Ohio).
On May 4, 2001, the venue was reopened as the Sunrise Intracoastal Cinemas 8. The venue featured independent films, international films, and hosted events including a question and answer with the director of “Play the Game” in 2009. Sunrise moved on in November of 2011. That same month, it was taken over as the Intracoastal Cinemas 8 operated by Frank Theatres. Frank also moved on as the theatre staggered, by all reviews, toward its April 27, 2014 closure in need of repairs and air fresheners.
The theatre received a much-needed transformation in 2014 when Boca Raton-based iPic Theatres completely gutted the existing space and created a premium dining/bar/theatre experience with seating drastically reduced to just 50 to 90 seats per the eight auditoriums. The iPic North Miami Beach launched (deciding not to include “Intracoastal” for reasons unknown) on November 10, 2017. As the retail portion of the Intracoastal Mall staggered, an ambitious master plan was announced for the Mall that would turn it into a mixed used facility. The iPic North Miami Beach continued to operate as the plan was under consideration.
The Meyerland three-plex was a profitable venue during General Cinema’s halcyon days of twins, tris, quads, and assorted other multiplexes. The GCC Meyerland Plaza reached its 30-year leasing with aplomb serving legions of customers. Its genesis is within the original Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center that had opened theatre-less on October 31, 1957 with a Meyer’s and a Henke & Pillot as anchors followed by a Woolworth’s. As a portent of both good and bad times to come, the Plaza would add retailing chains including Service Merchandise, Venture, Borders Books, Palais Royal and - on a nearby outparcel - Kmart. All of these players, of course, were ingredients for retail highs and incredible lows as each would race toward obsolescence.
As for its theatrical chain, in 1964 the Meyerland Plaza Mall had added an annex and announced that General Cinema Corporation would build one of its three, twin-screen theatres in the Houston area. They were placed within Northline Shopping City, Gulfgate Shopping Center, and the Meyerland Plaza Mall. Now one might ask why the Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center didn’t just do as many other warm-climate open air shopping centers had done prior to it and enclose the “mall.” Sadly, the second floor of the Meyerland was an innovative transportation portal allowing trucks to make deliveries on upper, “unseen” floors allowing for more efficient usage of ground floors. So, the open-air Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center was never enclosed.
The General Cinema Meyerland Plaza Cinema I & II launched April 14, 1965 with “Mister Moses” with Robert Mitchum and Carroll Baker. Mitchum would make the trek to all three new Houston twins in support of the film. The Meyerland venue would become a triplex remaining profitable. But the Meyerland Plaza Mall would go into free fall as 20-, 25-, and 30-year leases reached expiry. The Plaza saw a major exodus of retailers in the 1980s as it reached “greyscale” status, a term akin to a dead mall featuring a completely desolate open air center courtyard. The yard’s trees had reportedly matured without enough care - a symbol of neglect for the Meyerland.
The 1980s / 1990s story of the Mall was very much a cautionary tale of that period for Houston. The Plaza had been owned by a single entity but then became a labyrinth when the property was divided up amongst several major players in the early 1980s. It all seemed to be an exercise in futility with the center in freefall, an economic downturn due to issues and unemployment within the oil industry, and a savings and loan crisis. The Plaza’s players couldn’t make their payments and Meyerland next ended up in the hand of two financial institutions on default: Continental Savings and Loan and Lamar Savings. Perhaps fortuitously, during the savings and loan meltdown, both of these entities were dissolved as insolvent. The bad news was that the center languished terribly with no upgrades and lots of deterioration over a seven-year stretch.
GCC was likely in the best shape of the occupants (along with the center’s booming video game arcade) as the theater was still booking good films and drawing crowds. General Cinema was undoubtedly going to opt out at its 30-year expiry in 1995 so likely just wanted to wring each dollar it could at the dying plaza. That plan changed in 1993. A single entity, Wulfe & Co., was able to untangle to labyrinthian ownership, liens and assorted legal issues plaguing the Meyerland. Architects Hermes & Reed along with Ray Bailey would take the Meyerland Plaza back to relevancy in 1994. In that stunning redevelopment would be the razing of the GCC Meyerland Plaza I, II, III which would be replaced by an 8-screen General Cinema’s multiplex. The three-plex closed January 15, 1995 with demolition occurring soon thereafter.
The replacement 8-screen GCC Meyerland 8 has its own CinemaTreasure listing. And the regional retail Meyerland Plaza would become relevant once more. But - spoiler - the new theater doesn’t have a happy ending as GCC should have gone much bigger there and everywhere else failing to adapt to the multiplex world of the mid-1990s. The new facility would be operated by three circuits before being demolished all within ten years.
The Deerfield appears to have operated fairly consistently for its first 25 years. It had short periods of inactivity between various operators over the years including March of 2011 when it closed after the expiry of a 25-year lease. Two operators appear to have relit the venue thereafter including TFG which closed the Deerfield Cinemas 5 permanently on October 6, 2013. The venue was listed for sale thereafter becoming a house of worship.
The Gold Coast opened March 23, 1956 with a double-feature of “Forever Darling” and “Bad Day at Black Rock.” It was closed with a double-feature on November 26, 1978 with “Jaws II" and “Gray Lady Down.”
Local architects - Vander Ploeg & Associates of Boca Raton - helped design the $1 million cinema as an original anchor of the Schmier & Fuerring Properties' Mission Bay Plaza announced in 1987.
Wometco announced its 1,000-seat Boca Raton Theatre in 1963 with a groundbreaking and time capsule ceremony November 28, 1963 attended by the Mayor of Boca Raton. The venue had an open house on May 26, 1964 followed by a World Premiere showing of “Flipper’s New Adventure” on May 27, 1964 to open the theatre. Mitzie, the porpoise who played Flipper, was transported from Miami to Boca to attend the premiere as was local Channel 6 personality Chuck Zink in his role as “Popeye Playhouse” emcee Skipper Chuck.
The theatre operated on a 20-year lease. Not long after the half-way point, a plan was drawn up to divide the auditorium into two. As noted above, the venue relaunched as a twin on June 25, 1976 with “The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea” and Walt Disney’s “Peter Pan” with “The Horse with the Flying Tail.” The venue then closed quietly on August 16, 1984 with “"Revenge of the Nerds” and “The Philadelphia Experiment.”
The Tavernier Twin Cinema launched in 1980 just a year after the shopping center housing the venue was established as the Tavernier Towne Mall. The complex, however, was most commonly referred to as a “shopping center” and its genesis was as a shopping center in 1976. The venue operated from 1980 to 2000, assuming, on a 20-year lease as the Tavernier Twin Cinema and then as the Tavernier Towne Cinemas from 2000 into 2002 when it closed to expand on July, 2002 by operators - then Sam and Ayman Nekhaila.
After its almost 22 years as a twin cinema, the venue re-emerged in July of 2003 as a five-screen operation retaining the Tavernier Towne Cinemas moniker. On December 13, 2014, it was called the B&B Tavernier Cinema 5 operated by the B&B Circuit.
B&B closed it and the rest of its operation on March 16, 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened but purportedly did not ever reconnect with its audience closing at the end of its showtime schedule on February 20, 2022. It soon continued as an independent thereafter taken on by Sean and Sam Nekhaila who returned to the venue. They reopened on March 1, 2022 as the Tavernier Cinema 5.
This venue appears to have launched as the Cinema Twin on September 22, 1972 with “Joe Kidd” and they got the second screen ready for showtimes beginning on November 3, 1972. Then it became the Cinema IV on September 16, 1983. In December of 1990, it became the Cinema VI. On May 20, 1994, it became Cobb Circuit’s Cobb Cinema VI.
On June 12, 1997, Cobb was acquired by Regal and the theatre changed to the Regal Cinema VI. In 2001, that name was fine tuned to the Regal Cinema Key West 6. The circuit would then lose the “6” becoming the Regal Key West. The theatre closed twice. Once for Hurricane Irma which damaged the venue on September 17, 2017 apparently relaunching on April 20, 2019. It closed again for the COVID-19 pandemic on March 16, 2020. It would reopen later that year closing again on October 8, 2020 until another reopening in 2021.
The unwieldy-named Sidedoor Westside Cinema was Marathon’s first movie house launching June 2, 1989 with “Major League.” The tiny cinema was located next to the Sidedoor Lounge and sharing its name upon launching. The venue shortened its name to the West Side (now two words) Cinema in 1993 until closing in 1995. In 1995, the Marathon Community Theatre bought the property converting the lounge into a live venue for stage plays and other events.
The cinema was reopened by the theatre group as the Marathon Community Cinema after more than six months of closure with “Goldeneye” on November 17, 1995. In 2006, the cinema was listed as the Marathon Community Theatre still showing Hollywood films. It then went with the shortened, Marathon Cinema, nameplate until its closure on March 15, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic after showings of “The Call of the Wild.” The closing was said to be permanent.
However, the operation continued with a Grand Opening and new folks reverting to the Marathon Community Cinema nameplate on February 12, 2021 with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The venue was still operational in 2022 open four days a week with contemporary cinema and some repertory titles.
Major and Mrs. Robert Duncan launched the Cinemorada in December of 1955. It had Simplex projection with stereo sound. The $147,000 theater then suffered $45,000 in damages during Hurricane Donna ion September 13, 1960. Repairs were made with a reopening and open house on October 28, 1960. The Duncans offered the operation for sale in 1962 without a taker. It was, however, leased on Sundays beginning on September 30, 1962 to the Island Community Church for services. The theatre, however, closed in bankruptcy before year’s end and was offered in a foreclosure sale without a buyer in 1963.
The theater was sold at a steep loss at a forced auction on March 3, 1964 for just $41,000. Peter Joyce was the venue’s final operator of the Cinemorada venue refreshing it in 1972 and it was still in operation - though closing - in 1974. (“Vanishing Wilderness” is the last advertised show on April 3, 1974.) The Island Community Church became the sole owner thereafter after receiving a $200,000 gift in 1974 to take on the venue full-time. The main building looked similar to the way it did when the theatre launched at 83250 Overseas Highway in the 2020s.
Wometco architect Robert E. Collins drew the plans for the November 23, 1938 streamline moderne makeover of the Strand Theatre.
Robert E. Collins drew the original plans for the theatre.
The 1939 complete refurbishing plans of the State Theatre was drawn by architect Robert E. Collins.
Robert E. Collins was the associate architect with William H. Lee
For 24-plus years this venue was known as the California Club Theatre because of its location in the mall of that same name. The California Club Mall appears to have opened in 1982. Muvico then announced its $2.8 million theater addition to the Mall to be opened in 1987. The plan was delayed but its cost (said to be $1.2 million higher than an average six-plex due to extra equipment and upgraded seating for the technology-centered venue) led to an impressive venue worth waiting for. The California Club 6 Theatre opened on October 6, 1988 with a soft launch featuring “Altered States” in 70mm, “THX 1138,” “Aliens,” “Indiana Jones,” and “Star Trek.” Its Grand Opening celebration continued with normally-priced films and concessions the next day.
For a very brief period, it was known as the Cineluxe 6 Theater beginning on Christmas Day 2012 and closing permanently just 10 months later on October 24, 2013 at the expiry of a 25-year leasing period.
Robert E. Collins 1945 redesign sketch - in a $75,000 update to a streamline modern venue - is posted in photos.
Architectural plans were drawn in 1963 by famed theater architect Robert E. Collins for the Florida State Theatres circuit. A 1963 picture of Florida State Theatre executive Harry Botwick shows him holding the Collins' drawings.
Architectural plans were drawn in 1964 by famed theater architect Robert E. Collins for the Florida State Theatres circuit.
Robert E. Collins, architect
This was one of the last theaters, if not the last, designed by famed architect Robert E. Collins.
Samuel M. Puder of South Miami was the architect of the original Loew’s 167th project (sketch in photos.) The mural work and interior design were Rochester-based Patrick Casey and Joseph Schuler. It opened as the circuit’s 114th theater.
In 1985, Gen-Star took on the venue under the name of Gen-Star’s 167th Twin Theatre. Gen-Star also operated the Kendall, and Bay Harbor at that time. In February of 1986, Wometco took on the venue as its final operator under the name of Wometco’s 167th Twin Theatre. It closed with that name on September 7, 1990 with “Air America” and “Pump Up the Volume.” The theatre was said to have been demolished in 1992 for a new-build Pep Boys garage.
The Skylake Twin Cinema closed February 13, 1997 as a sub-run discount house with “Set it Off” and “Daylight” on Screen I and “Space Jam” and “Jingle All the Way” on Screen II. At that point, the mall had 48 vacancies in its 71 storefronts and the cinema was able to opt out of its lease early at the 15-year mark.
It may well be but the local paper reports that the Valentine’s 1982 incident occurred at the Plitt Sunny Isles Twin Theatre and that the movie the man and his wife were on their way to attending did play at the Sunny Isles Twin on Valentine’s Day, 1982. The jury award payout occurred in June of 1986.
In 1978, Henry Plitt formed Plitt Theatre Holdings with some partners to buy ABC`s Southern Circuit of theaters includng ABC’s Florida State Theatres for $49 million including the Southern Isles Twin. Plitt operated the venue from December of 1978 until closure on February 2, 1984 as as Plitt’s Sunny Isles Twin.
It reopened as an independent as the Sunny Isles Twin the next day. It closed on March 4, 1984 with “Boarding School” and “Angelo, My Love” placing a “Closed for Remodeling: Returning on May 3d.” But the venue thought better of the plan making the March 4th closure permanent. Following its conversion to retail operationes, the Sunny Isles Twin theatre was in the news one last time in 1986 as Plitt lost a $1 million lawsuit for a 1982 injury incident in its parking lot.
The Holiday Theatre closed at the end of its 20-year leasing period on July 5, 1990 with “The Hunt for Red October” splitting the single-screener with “Miami Blues.”
The Intracoastal Mall on the waterfront of North Miami Beach opened in 1987 with discount clothing chains T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s, grocer Winn-Dixie, and a General Cinema multiplex theater as its anchors. Restaurants included Shooters and a Ruth Chris Steak House. The General Cinema Intracoastal 8 launched with “Orphans,” “Deadline,” “Killing Time,” “When You Were Here,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “The Sicilian” on October 23, 1987.
Ten years later, General Cinema was watching aggressive building of new destination theatre complexes in the “megaplex era” devour aging 6-8 screen multiplexes. Unfortunately for the circuit, they held a huge portfolio of such multiplexes and they witnessed their death in slow motion. GCC’s Intracoastal was the very definition of an aging and uncomfortable multiplex. The circuit closed all eleven of its remaining Florida locations on “(GCC) Black Friday” September 29, 2000 along with 13 others (five in Atlanta, three in New Orleans, as well as Seattle, Albuquerque, Houston, Raleigh and Columbus, Ohio).
On May 4, 2001, the venue was reopened as the Sunrise Intracoastal Cinemas 8. The venue featured independent films, international films, and hosted events including a question and answer with the director of “Play the Game” in 2009. Sunrise moved on in November of 2011. That same month, it was taken over as the Intracoastal Cinemas 8 operated by Frank Theatres. Frank also moved on as the theatre staggered, by all reviews, toward its April 27, 2014 closure in need of repairs and air fresheners.
The theatre received a much-needed transformation in 2014 when Boca Raton-based iPic Theatres completely gutted the existing space and created a premium dining/bar/theatre experience with seating drastically reduced to just 50 to 90 seats per the eight auditoriums. The iPic North Miami Beach launched (deciding not to include “Intracoastal” for reasons unknown) on November 10, 2017. As the retail portion of the Intracoastal Mall staggered, an ambitious master plan was announced for the Mall that would turn it into a mixed used facility. The iPic North Miami Beach continued to operate as the plan was under consideration.
The Meyerland three-plex was a profitable venue during General Cinema’s halcyon days of twins, tris, quads, and assorted other multiplexes. The GCC Meyerland Plaza reached its 30-year leasing with aplomb serving legions of customers. Its genesis is within the original Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center that had opened theatre-less on October 31, 1957 with a Meyer’s and a Henke & Pillot as anchors followed by a Woolworth’s. As a portent of both good and bad times to come, the Plaza would add retailing chains including Service Merchandise, Venture, Borders Books, Palais Royal and - on a nearby outparcel - Kmart. All of these players, of course, were ingredients for retail highs and incredible lows as each would race toward obsolescence.
As for its theatrical chain, in 1964 the Meyerland Plaza Mall had added an annex and announced that General Cinema Corporation would build one of its three, twin-screen theatres in the Houston area. They were placed within Northline Shopping City, Gulfgate Shopping Center, and the Meyerland Plaza Mall. Now one might ask why the Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center didn’t just do as many other warm-climate open air shopping centers had done prior to it and enclose the “mall.” Sadly, the second floor of the Meyerland was an innovative transportation portal allowing trucks to make deliveries on upper, “unseen” floors allowing for more efficient usage of ground floors. So, the open-air Meyerland Plaza Mall Shopping Center was never enclosed.
The General Cinema Meyerland Plaza Cinema I & II launched April 14, 1965 with “Mister Moses” with Robert Mitchum and Carroll Baker. Mitchum would make the trek to all three new Houston twins in support of the film. The Meyerland venue would become a triplex remaining profitable. But the Meyerland Plaza Mall would go into free fall as 20-, 25-, and 30-year leases reached expiry. The Plaza saw a major exodus of retailers in the 1980s as it reached “greyscale” status, a term akin to a dead mall featuring a completely desolate open air center courtyard. The yard’s trees had reportedly matured without enough care - a symbol of neglect for the Meyerland.
The 1980s / 1990s story of the Mall was very much a cautionary tale of that period for Houston. The Plaza had been owned by a single entity but then became a labyrinth when the property was divided up amongst several major players in the early 1980s. It all seemed to be an exercise in futility with the center in freefall, an economic downturn due to issues and unemployment within the oil industry, and a savings and loan crisis. The Plaza’s players couldn’t make their payments and Meyerland next ended up in the hand of two financial institutions on default: Continental Savings and Loan and Lamar Savings. Perhaps fortuitously, during the savings and loan meltdown, both of these entities were dissolved as insolvent. The bad news was that the center languished terribly with no upgrades and lots of deterioration over a seven-year stretch.
GCC was likely in the best shape of the occupants (along with the center’s booming video game arcade) as the theater was still booking good films and drawing crowds. General Cinema was undoubtedly going to opt out at its 30-year expiry in 1995 so likely just wanted to wring each dollar it could at the dying plaza. That plan changed in 1993. A single entity, Wulfe & Co., was able to untangle to labyrinthian ownership, liens and assorted legal issues plaguing the Meyerland. Architects Hermes & Reed along with Ray Bailey would take the Meyerland Plaza back to relevancy in 1994. In that stunning redevelopment would be the razing of the GCC Meyerland Plaza I, II, III which would be replaced by an 8-screen General Cinema’s multiplex. The three-plex closed January 15, 1995 with demolition occurring soon thereafter.
The replacement 8-screen GCC Meyerland 8 has its own CinemaTreasure listing. And the regional retail Meyerland Plaza would become relevant once more. But - spoiler - the new theater doesn’t have a happy ending as GCC should have gone much bigger there and everywhere else failing to adapt to the multiplex world of the mid-1990s. The new facility would be operated by three circuits before being demolished all within ten years.
The Deerfield appears to have operated fairly consistently for its first 25 years. It had short periods of inactivity between various operators over the years including March of 2011 when it closed after the expiry of a 25-year lease. Two operators appear to have relit the venue thereafter including TFG which closed the Deerfield Cinemas 5 permanently on October 6, 2013. The venue was listed for sale thereafter becoming a house of worship.
The Gold Coast opened March 23, 1956 with a double-feature of “Forever Darling” and “Bad Day at Black Rock.” It was closed with a double-feature on November 26, 1978 with “Jaws II" and “Gray Lady Down.”
Local architects - Vander Ploeg & Associates of Boca Raton - helped design the $1 million cinema as an original anchor of the Schmier & Fuerring Properties' Mission Bay Plaza announced in 1987.
GCC closed here on September 28, 2000.
Wometco announced its 1,000-seat Boca Raton Theatre in 1963 with a groundbreaking and time capsule ceremony November 28, 1963 attended by the Mayor of Boca Raton. The venue had an open house on May 26, 1964 followed by a World Premiere showing of “Flipper’s New Adventure” on May 27, 1964 to open the theatre. Mitzie, the porpoise who played Flipper, was transported from Miami to Boca to attend the premiere as was local Channel 6 personality Chuck Zink in his role as “Popeye Playhouse” emcee Skipper Chuck.
The theatre operated on a 20-year lease. Not long after the half-way point, a plan was drawn up to divide the auditorium into two. As noted above, the venue relaunched as a twin on June 25, 1976 with “The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea” and Walt Disney’s “Peter Pan” with “The Horse with the Flying Tail.” The venue then closed quietly on August 16, 1984 with “"Revenge of the Nerds” and “The Philadelphia Experiment.”