Puyallup Cinemas
1200 4th Avenue NW,
Puyallup,
WA
98371
1200 4th Avenue NW,
Puyallup,
WA
98371
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The Hi-Ho Shopping Center had been proposed as purportedly the town’s first such retail center in 1960, held its ground breaking on August 19, 1961, and launched in 1962. The project sprawled to the west in two different expansions. A 1979 opening called, informally, the KMart Plaza provided an opening for a theater. The center inked Tom Moyer’s Luxury Theatres for a new multiplex in 1980 with Fred Meyer’s superstore/grocery chain taking on the Hi-Ho as Fred Meyer’s Hi-Ho Shopping Center.
The very long-gestating cinema project came to fruition on August 12, 1983 in a theater promising the finest quality stereo cinematic projection with maximum sized screens. The talk may not have matched the buzz but so it went for Mr. Moyer. Act III Theatres of Portland acquired the Luxury brand in 1989 with the venue taking the nameplate in 1990. In October of 1998, ACT III was acquired by Regal Theatres (KKR) taking on the Regal Cinemas / Act III Puyallup Cinemas 6 briefly in October 1989 and the Act III disappearing not long thereafter. “Hi-Ho” was dropped from the center the next year.
Regal appears to have closed there quietly on September 9, 2004 with “Anchorman,” “Dodgeball,” “Little Black Book,” “Garfield,” and “Day After Tomorrow” with all advertising and listings ceasing thereafter. The space has been retrofitted for other purposes including a saloon.
Closed in either late-December 2004 or early-January 2005.
Uploaded a photo of the abandoned building. Per danibuckley, most of the building, the end where the original entrance was, is a Goodwill Store. The Big Whiskey Saloon occupies the rest.
This opened on August 12th, 1983. Grand opening ads posted.
Quick update. The building (most of it, at least) is now a Goodwill store. Seems kind of fitting.
Tom Moyer wanted to sell his chain to United Artists in 1988. View link
$625 Million??? Serious?
The stories I could tell about his frugality. But, I guess that’s why he has the money now. :)
And today Tom Moyer has a net worth of 625 million dollars. He made his in the theater industry.
Mark, no offense taken. Luxury Theatres were the worse thing to happen to motion pictures in the Pacific Northwest. The owner (Tom Moyer of Portland) was very cheap and had no love for the cinema. He was in the business for one reason only – to make money.
To illustrate how cheap he was, we were required to return burned out light bulbs (yes, even cheap 100 watt bulbs) to Portland BEFORE they would send a replacement to us. Managers ended up buying their own bulbs just to avoid this stupidity.
In the early 1980’s there was only one mentality coming from Luxury’s Portland offices – build and operate a theater as cheaply as possible. They were designed to get people (and their money) in and out as quickly as possible while spending as little of the company’s money as possible. True, this is how businesses operate – but Luxury took it to extremes.
Outside of the managers (who were usually quite young), we hired almost only high school kids at minimum wage and worked them as long as we could before they wised up and moved on to something better.
My worst job ever.
At the time of closing, Regal Cinemas was operating it. It made money, but they did not want to operate any discount theaters.
Dan, no disrespect, but wow this was a bad theatre from the day it opened. A true showplace for Tom Moyer’s “Luxury Theatres” chain. My parents took us kids to opening weekend in 1983 to see Mr. Mom and vowed never to return (we did, but they usually defaulted to the Tacoma South or Tacoma Mall Twin if they could). All auditoriums had seperate doors with no light trap leading to the hallway, letting light spill in. The heavy doors also had latches (why?) that clanked when opening or closing. Screen masking seemed to be common size so no matter of you were watching a scope picture or a 1.85 the image would be cropped. Mono sound. Luxury Theatres lovely brown-orange-yellow motif. At least the seats were confy if you sat in the back half of the auditorium. The front half were cheap thin seats. We went to see an odd documentary called “Trek” in 1985 that Luxury Theatres had booked into all their theatres. 1 hour in when the changeover was meant to happen the screen went white and the other projector did not fire up. The projectionist opened up the window and yelled down to the audience that there would be a short intermission, as if it were normal. Something tells me it might have been a regular occurance. At least Act III spiffed the place up when they took over, adding digital sound, replacing the ugly curtains with nice dark green ones, replacing the seats and possibly even putting in proper masking. I saw “The Birdcage” there in the big auditorium and was surprised by the impovement. I am surprised they could not keep it open as a discount house.
I actually managed this theater from 1984 until 1988. Kate is right in her initial post – it was one of those quickly built theaters built mainly to keep the competition out. The population center of Puyallup moved from the downtown area to the South Hill area – a few miles away.
It is built with a car dealership directly in front of it and the Puyallup River directly behind it (it had flooded the parking lot while I was there). To one side is K-Mart and the other side are facility buildings for the city and a skate park. There isn’t enough room for a Wal-Mart (there are two Super Wal-Marts already in town anyway).
I had no idea that a church was buying it – I guess times change…
Yup that’s it alright. Too bad a church is going to get it.
Built by Tom Moyer’s Luxury Theatres. Then operated later by Act 3 Theaters and then by Regal Cinemas before closing. The building is for lease.