Regal Uptown 3
1300 Jadwin Avenue,
Richland,
WA
99354
1300 Jadwin Avenue,
Richland,
WA
99354
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The Richland Uptown Shopping Center was a visionary “atomic age” shopping center concept delivered on December 6, 1949 with most of the businesses opening that day. Midstate Amusement was on hand and decided they would add a theater at the right side of the complex. Originally on the drafting table with the working title of the Strand by architect H. Brandt Gessell & Associates, the company took the moniker of the shopping center. The Uptown would be constructed in 1950 costing $250,000 and it seated 1,200 patrons at launch.
Regal closed here as the Regal Uptown 3 Theatres on January 29, 2006 at the end of lease with “Chronicles of Narnia,” “Underworld Evolution,” and “Walk the Line.” The building was offered for sale the next day for $550,000.
Once operated by SRO, later by Cineplex Odeon, later by Act III, and finally Regal.
Midstate Amusement opened the 1,200-seat Uptown Theatre on October 26, 1950 with Robert Cummings in “The Petty Girl” and Walt Disney’s “Beaver Valley” with no extra short subjects. The building had an estimate $300,000 in construction.
It was closed on February 12, 2006.
The Uptown Theatre is now the home of a church with the rather unchurch-like name Eastlake Tri-Cities. Here is the map from their web site.
1951 photo & copy added credit Vintage Tri-Cities Facebook page.
A couple checks out the poster for “The Fighting Coast Guard”, starring Brian Donley and Ella Raines at the Uptown Theater in Richland, 1951.
First movie I saw here was “Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom”. Also saw “Spies Like Us”, “Brazil”, and “Showgirls” at the Uptown.
The last film shown at the Uptown was “Big Momma’s House 2” on February 11, 2006. It would be shut down for good on Sunday, February 12th.
Here’s a photo from Flickr with the construction of the theater, June 5, 1950: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idyllopuspress/3433277309/in/photostream/
A look at an indoor display inside the Uptown for the film “Little Egypt”. Upon walking into Uptown, this would have been to the wall on the right side. In the 80’s and early 90’s, the wall would have been lined up with two or three stand-up arcade video games. http://www.flickr.com/photos/idyllopuspress/3434080940/in/photostream/
Yeah, they always know how to ruin a Grand old Theatre with more screens,But it was either that or close,I know.
The entry for Walla Walla architect Henry Brandt Gessel in the 1955 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Uptown Theatre in Richland among his designs, and gives 1950 as the year of the project. The Uptown was mentioned in Boxoffice of August 19, 1950, which said that it was soon to open and would have 1,250 seats.