Las Olas Cinemas
300 SW 1st Avenue,
Fort Lauderdale,
FL
33304
300 SW 1st Avenue,
Fort Lauderdale,
FL
33304
3 people
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video tour:
The page for this cinema on the Abandoned Florida website, that includes a variety of photos, says the cinema and the entire complex of which it was a part was demolished in 2017:
https://www.abandonedfl.com/sunrise-cinemas-las-olas/
The last paragraph says:
“The complex sat empty until 2017, when the property was bought by a developer for $29 million. Later that same year, it was demolished to make way for two high-rise residential towers, standing at 42 and 38 stories tall. The towers will have over 40,000 square feet of shops and restaurants on the lower levels, and 1,200 one and two bedroom apartments. The first phase of the project is planned to be completed by 2021.”
I’ve seen this confirmed by 2019 Google Street View images, which show a large construction project where the older images show the Riverfront entertainment, dining and shopping complex.
I attended the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival here maybe 20 years ago.
In 2007, the final film I saw at what I knew as the Las Olas Riverfront Cinemas was “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”, a documentary about men competing to achieve the world record high score on the classic video arcade game Donkey Kong. : )
I saw The Great Gatsby at Las Olas in 2013. I think it closed shortly after that. The film presentation was good. Properly masked, but the bulb was a little dim and the sound was off. This multiplex reminded my of a picture palace in the 1970’s that had fallen on hard times. Areas sat dark and unused. It seemed to be dim and cavernous. There was a boarded over concession stand on the upper level. I am not a multiplex person but liked this one. An odd aura about the place. Sad to see it go.
With all the condos that have been built there is no reason this theater shouldn’t have taken off. Unfortunately except for Dan Marino’s Town Tavern the whole complex in general was a flop
Stopped by on July 26 and noticed work was going on inside the building. Is the building being renovated into something else or to be torn down?
You can see the page. When I clipped the page, there was an option to embed the ad at newspapers.com.
memberships are also available also at http://sun-sentinel.newspapers.com/
Thanks, Rivest. But how did you get a pic posted on CT comments and not the photos section? And can those without Newspapers.com membership see it?
I was at the grand opening Rivest. What a shame it never took off.
Grand opening
Found on Newspapers.com
Theater update: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sq1xQ429t4 Everything still seems to be in place despite being abandoned for almost two years.
Update status to closed.
Closed sometime toward the end of 2013, and any mention removed from the Frank Theaters Website.
The whole Las Olas Riverfront complex continues to struggle, and various redevelopment possibilities continue to be floated.
Acording to the Frank Theater web site it lists only showings for 9 screens. It was changed to 11 when Frank’s took it over. Please correct information at the top showing 15 screens
Originally this theater was 23 screens. I am not sure why they could not make all 23 work. I know parking was always an issue.
According to the Yelp reviews cinemas 1-4 are now closed off leaving 11 cinemas. I confirmed it by checking the showtimes and find only 11 cinemas in use.
OMG Sinrise cinemas was a great independant chain for many years in Ft lauderdale. Now Frank theaters has taken them over. The are the low life of theater chains. This is really sad news.
It is now being operated by Frank Theatres; the new official website is: http://www.franktheatres.com/Home.aspx. (It is listed there as the “Las Olas”).
It’s now listed as Sunrise Cinemas Stadium 15 @ Las Olas Riverfront
Really seedy, considering that it’s in a sort of prime location.
It’s very shabby and musty smelling…and in my auditorium the image jiggled and jumped the entire show, despite repeated reports to management.
Nice, graceful sloping stadium seating, though, and the rooms are nicely decorated; some are over 400 seats.
I heard this Riverfront complex is a financial bust and is being redeveloped. I wonder if this place is coming down, too.
All in all, pretty disappointing.
When it opened in 1998, the Las Olas Riverfront cinema was a 23-screen, state-of-the-art multiplex run by Regal Cinemas. In only four years, it went sharply downhill, as I guess profits were unsatisfactory and therefore management and floor employees were scarce. I visited for a showing of ‘Town & Country’ one day and had an altercation with a disruptive patron who had wandered in from another film. It took me over five minutes to find an employee, by which point the offender had vanished after tossing my belongings from my seat to the aisle.
Sunrise Cinemas, a South Florida-based chain, relieved Regal of the chore of running this theater, pared the venue down to only 15 screens, and is hardly doing a better job. I rarely go to this theater — only when the film of choice is not playing elsewhere — but every time I do, I experience some sort of technical problem, be it an audio problem or a projection problem. When I went to see ‘Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut’ with a girlfriend and a friend, the anamorphic film was being projected as a spherical 1.85:1 film, thus distorting the image by making it too narrow. I had to complain three times before this mistake was corrected, and this introduced conflict to an otherwise rewarding social gathering.
The managers at this theater, as employed by Sunrise Cinemas, are bullies, plain and simple. Unapologetic at best and bellicose at worst, they’re the bottom of the barrel of uptight suburban trash and I’d sooner miss a film entirely than ever go to this venue again.