Stadium 10 at Northgate

Found a better quality grand opening ad and posted it here.

East Coast Entertainment reopened here in 2021.

This web page dated August 1, 2007, says that East Coast Entertainment had just taken over operation of this house from Phoenix Entertainment. Phoenix operated the house for only about a year.

The project had originally been planned for West Virginia-based Marquee Cinemas, but they pulled out of the deal before the theater opened. As Phoenix not only operates its own theaters but also provides management services for other theater owners, I suspect that they were brought in at the last minute with a short-term deal by the owners of the mall after Marquee pulled out.

Either the theater owners or Phoenix probably became dissatisfied with the arrangement, and East Coast Entertainment, a company which operates an amusement park in Myrtle Beach, was brought in to take over the theater. Ten years later, this is still that company’s only cinema. Various reports and theater reviews from around the web suggest that they don’t put much effort into it, and the cinema is now in bad shape.

With major chain competition nearby, this independent probably doesn’t have much power with movie distributors, so it isn’t surprising that the place is getting run down. It has been suggested that the theater is being kept open only as a tax shelter. It seems a plausible claim to me.

Renamed the Theatres at Northgate 10,which is owned and operated under East Coast Entertainment. The theatre opened in 2005 in the former Belk-Leggett Department Store during the renovation of the Northgate Mall. The theatre is at the intersection of West Club Boulevard and Gregson Street near Interstate 85 in Durham.