Campbell Square VI Theatre

The Campbell Square Shopping Center opened at the confluence of U.S. Highway 1 / Homestead Road and Campbell Drive / 8th Street in 1979. The area was becoming the new hub of Homestead moving City Hall and a nucleus of its modern retailing to the area. The town was serviced by its aging Seminole Theatre turned Premier Theatre that had moved from sub-run discount house to exhibiting Spanish language films. But the Wometco Campbell Square Triple Theatre announced in late-1978 would change that. A public ground-breaking took place March 2, 1979 for the $600,000 to $750,000 theatre that would have three, identical 434-seat auditoriums with stereo sound and reportedly wider aisles.

Located within the Campbell Square Shopping Center at 837 N.E. 8th Street, the venue opened with an invitation-only launch on September 20, 1979 that included Homestead Mayor Nick Sincore as well as a local bagpipe band. Because the venue was slated for a July opening and had already booked its films, the cinema opened with titles that had already premiered elsewhere. Its first films both at the invitational screening and the public Grand Opening on September 21st were “Alien", “The In-Laws” and “The Main Event". At about the same time, the downtown Premier Theatre ceased operations. In May of 1983, the triplex played “Return of the Jedi” in Dolby Stereo as one of its many successful presentations.

In 1985, a plan was executed to update the Campbell Square three-plex to a six-plex to remain competitive in the multiplex era. Each of the auditoriums was twinned in a period from October 1985 to February of 1986 moving the triplex briefly to just two screens in October and early-November while the first twinning took place. From there the venue staggered the twinning process so that it operated with four screens (a twin and two original auditoriums), with five screens (two twins and one original auditorium) and then during the light business period of January 1986 came the final twinning with the venue again briefly at four screens (two twins). It relaunched as the Campbell Square VI in early February 1986 as a six ‘plex.

Hurricane Andrew hit the South Dade area hard early in the morning of August 24, 1992, decimating the theatre with $700,000 worth of damage. It never reopened. The final movies screened on August 23, 1992 were showings of “Rapid Fire", “Unforgiven", “3 Ninjas", “Raising Cain", “Stay Tuned", and “Christopher Columbus: The Discovery". The hurricane also closed the UA Falls and the AMC South Dade 8 for extensive periods while also damaging the Seminole/Premier. All three of those venues would eventually be brought back into operation.

After much deliberation, the Campbell Square would not be repaired and was slated for demolition in April 1993 with the job completed in September of 1993. Wometco said that the developer of the former Campbell Square didn’t want to build a comparable theatre space and backed away from a new Homestead theatre.

The Campbell Square’s replacement plaza took some six years to build and was called Homestead Corners with eleven stores anchored by a drug store and a grocery store but no theatre. And in the space of time between the razing of the old and opening of the new plaza, much had transpired in the movie industry. Wometco had passed to Cobb Theatres and Cobb Theatres to Regal / United Artists while the theatrical business had gone from its multiplex era to a new megaplex era.

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