Comments about Noland Fashion Cinema in Independence, MO

dallasmovietheaters on July 18, 2025 at 3:33 pm

Mention Cinema Treasures and you can get that leasing down to $17.5k no problem. The Noland Fashion Square Mall was announced in 1985. White Castle was among the first to sign on here - sort of unique. Maxfield Simon & Diehl were the architects of the facility for Block & Co. in what was an amazing overbuild of retail facilities in the greater Kansas City metro area. Dickinson Theatres signed on to the project along with Bob’s IGA, TJ Maxx and some others. Dickinson went fancy when it held employee interviews at the posh Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge nearby in November of 1986.

The venue opened in the peak of the multiplex era of cinema exhibition with 2,070 seats (Two largest auditoriums - 435 seats; Two medium auditoriums - 350 seats and two smaller 250 seat auditoriums.) By 2000, Dickinson was suffering along with all of the other major cinema exhibitors who had gone into severe economic hardship in the overbuilding a new breed of megaplexes. The easiest way to make up for bad decisions was to declare bankruptcy and get out of long-term leases. A judge ok’d Dickinson’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan and the very first Dickinson location shuttered was right here on October 4, 2020 cutting bait with “The Watcher,” “The Cell,” “Scary Movie,” “Space Cowboys,” and “Bait.”

Globe Cinemas - who had the I-70 Drive-in, Crown Center and Red Bridge locations - decided to pick up the location repositioning it as a $1, sub-run discount house. The 2000s were a flux period for fading and faded ‘plexes. Globe, itself, had parted ways with the Crown Center on August 2, 2007 and the Red Bridge on August 30, 2008 and they had picked up and dropped Metro North on Nov 13, 2008. Why the Noland continued? Likely a combination of low leasing obligations as the venue approached Dickinson’s broken 30-year agreement and just enough folks turning out to hit their nut.

By 2013, however, the cinema industry had converted from analog film to DCCP digital films. Globe Cinemas was in no mood to entertain such thoughts at a strip shopping center clearly out of fashion. It closed on June 22, 2014 after dropping advertising support dollars. The theater was put on the market in 2014 where it remained an active listing into the mid-2020s as an optimistic realtor hoped for a rebirth. Unfortunately, and as documented by urban explorers, drug-addled interlopers smashed everything inside leaving behind mounds of evidence of their disservice to the former cinema. But nobody really seemed to care as the only question for the building’s future was natural disaster or human demolition - neither of which appeared to be particularly likely.

Nothing But Cinema on April 19, 2025 at 2:17 pm

This theater is available to lease for $19,805/month as of December 11th, 2023.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/13920-E-40-Hwy-Independence-MO/13360883/

rivest266 on November 10, 2020 at 5:03 pm

Reopened as a discount cinema on November 1st, 2002 Norland Fashion 6 reopening Fri, Nov 1, 2002 – 95 · The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri) · Newspapers.com

rivest266 on May 12, 2018 at 11:01 pm

This opened on December 19th, 1986. Grand opening ad in the photo section.

Logan5 on September 17, 2014 at 6:27 pm

Another insightful article (this one from James Fussell of the Kansas City Star dated 6/25/14) about the Noland Fashion Cinema and factors involved in its closure is here: http://goo.gl/apO4Xl

Buck Wilson on June 29, 2014 at 5:46 pm

This theater is now CLOSED.

http://www.examiner.net/article/20140628/NEWS/140628877/1994/NEWS/?Start=1

“ The last dollar-house theater in the Kansas City metropolitan area has succumbed to the era of digital film.

Noland Fashion Cinema 6, 13520 E. U.S. 40 in Independence, closed its doors for good June 22. The movie theater ran films that had been out weeks, or even months, prior to their initial release at discounted ticket prices since 2002. It opened in the mid 1980s as a first-run theater, said former General Manager Daryl Smith.
              
                “We sure didn’t want to close, but had no choice,” he said.
              
                The major reason behind the theater’s closing was the movie studios’ push for digital film, he added. Both he and Brian Wolfgang of Pharaoh 4 Cinemas, 114 West Maple Ave., in Independence, said it is harder to secure 35 millimeter film prints for exhibition due to many Hollywood movie studios releasing movies only in a digital format. The two theaters still use celluloid film projectors.
              
                “The cost ... didn’t justify the need to continue,” said Smith. He added that attendance at Noland Fashion Cinema 6 declined over the past few years, too. Given the low volume of business, it didn’t warrant the purchase of expensive digital projectors. Plus the time between a film’s theatrical release and its release on either DVD or Blu-ray has considerably shortened over the years, he added.
              
                Now the Pharaoh 4 remains as the only theater in Independence that still uses 35mm prints, but hopefully that is about to change soon, said Wolfgang.
              
                He said his theater is in the process of financing digital projectors that should be installed by late summer. However, it is estimated that four digital projectors for all of Pharaoh’s auditoriums would be in the price range of $250,000.
              
                But it should pay off.
              
                “Developing a 35mm print could be up to $2,000 to $2,500,” Smith said. “It’s cheaper on the digital factor.”
              
                With digital projectors comes the opportunity to also have a 3-D projector, he added. “There should be a resurgence when we become digital.”
              
                Currently, Wolfgang says he had to pass up on some films because the ones they previously acquired have to be shown for a specific amount of time. “We have to make a deal with the studio to show a film for two to three weeks, and we just don’t have the auditorium space.” And given the movie business, it’s hard to foresee what will be a box office draw.
              
                Wolfgang said a kick start program will be set up soon to help raise money for new digital projectors.
              
                As for Smith, he believes the movie theater market will not become obsolete."

Aparofan on June 12, 2009 at 5:16 pm

I’m pretty sure this theater opened in the mid 80’s. I remember going there in high school and I graduated in 1988. It’s a little run down now but it’s a decent second run house.

fbuckie on March 7, 2009 at 7:06 am

This is a six screen theatre, not an eight screen theatre.

karlyjm on February 7, 2008 at 5:01 am

Globe Cinemas didn’t build a single theatre I don’t believe. He just bought out old buildings and re-opened them.

swdailey on October 29, 2006 at 2:12 pm

This theater was built by Dickinson, not Globe. This whole area of South Noland Road was the hot area of Independence construction activity in the late 80s but has since fallen on hard times (at least in terms of major investment). AMC’s Independence Commons 20 is about 3 miles.

Noland Fashion Cinema

13520 E. 40 Highway, Independence, MO 64055

13520 E. 40 Highway,
Independence, MO 64055