Riverdale Stadium 13 Discount Theater

StanMalone on September 13, 2024 at 5:19 am

Like countless closed up theaters before it, this location became home to a church, several of them in fact. Now it is in the news again.

The article did not say who exactly owns the property but the most recent occupant, The Upper Room Church, was informed by the city of Riverdale that the building was in violation of numerous city codes regarding visible vandalism damage, graffiti on the buildings, abandoned cars in the parking lot, and fire code violations inside the building, especially the auditoriums. Apparently the previous church occupant had converted the lobby to a sanctuary. While not forbidding access, the church was told that it could not actually use the building until the code violations were corrected. In other words they could go inside to work on the problems but could not hold public meetings and activities.

When the city found out that the building was still being used for church activities they padlocked it forbidding any entry until the building was brought up to code. Now the church will be required to obtain a building permit before work can begin to bring the building up to code so that church services can once again be held inside. For the past six months the church has been meeting in a tent in the parking lot but no progress has been made on the old theater.

This is an old story regarding closed up movie theaters. You can’t just lock the doors, turn off the HVAC, and walk away and still expect to be able to come in months or years later and pick up where you left off. This sounds very much like the story of the old Cobb Center Theater in Smyrna. After 35 years in operation it was closed and after a period of time was home to a church. I don’t know if that church left first, but it too was padlocked by the fire department for code violations. It sat empty in this condition, slowly deteriorating for another 15 years before being demolished. There is something about old theaters, especially those built in the 80’s and later that makes them seem to rapidly decay. The Regal Town Center 16 in Kennesaw had been closed since Covid, four and a half years now, but it looks like it has been sitting there deteriorating since the turn of the century.

Leaking roofs, water damage, mold, inoperative and out of date HVAC systems and a whole slew of systems that would no longer meet the building codes of today make it cost prohibitive to bring these old places back to life for any use. It is cheaper to just tear them down and start over. Sometimes, as in the case of the Stonemont Twin, the landlords are forced to demolish them when the local authorities declare them a public nuisance. Some theaters like the Village and AMC Town Center were repurposed to other uses upon their closure and being maintained and occupied they are still in use today. Unfortunately for these free standing megaplexes built during the 90’s, they don’t easily convert to any other use so they are just left to sit and rot, examples of a very brief and in my opinion unlamented era of movie theater history.

rivest266 on April 15, 2018 at 1:24 pm

Expanded to 14 screens on June 21st, 1996. No ad found.

Mike Rogers on October 6, 2010 at 7:25 pm

Way too many owners.Reason it closed most likely.

Mike Rogers on July 1, 2010 at 11:13 am

Yep.it’s closed.