Suniland Triple
11941 South Dixie Highway,
Pinecrest,
FL
33156
11941 South Dixie Highway,
Pinecrest,
FL
33156
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Three screens opening on June 6th, 1980. small ad uploaded.
The Suniland theatre was opened by Florida State Theatres on June 25th, 1964 with “Good Neighbor Sam”. Grand opening ad re-uploaded.
Thank you for updating the city and Street View image.
Just for the record the theater’s original address was 11975 South Dixie Highway. The Best Buy that is now in the theater’s space is addressed at 11905.
What was the Suniland Triple is now a Best Buy.
A post from November 9th, 2007 on a “Remembering Old Miami” blog says “You grew up in Miami if you remember” followed by a list that includes “Sunniland (sic) Theater where the Oriental Rug place is now”.
If you look at the Best Buy from the 11941 South Dixie Highway angle on Google Street View on the Google Maps website then change the image to Nov 2007, an Azhar’s Oriental Rugs is where the Best Buy will later be.
Also what I remember back in the early 1990’s as being a blank marquee at the entrance to the parking lot by South Dixie Highway is the rug store’s sign on the left of the 2007 Street View image, then the Best Buy sign today.
I’ve seen a photo from the theater’s early days where it is a stand alone building with that marquee out by the highway, so the shopping center must have later been built on either side of it.
The theater’s address is correct based on old phone books but the address of the Best Buy is 11905 so the buildings may have been renumbered as businesses came and went.
The shopping center that the former theater was in is now on the western border of the Village of Pinecrest, which incorporated in 1996. This area was never part of the City of South Miami, which ends at SW 88th Street (Kendall Drive).
I have no memory of this theater when I was a kid. I just Google mapped it, and see a strip center. I wonder if the shell is part of any of the buildings?
Yes I was at the Suniland in June of 1983. I actually started there in August of 1982. The theatre was playing AC/DC Let There Be Rock with the enhanced sound system, ET and we opened Fast Times At Ridgemont High my first week. We also were running “Shock Treatment” as a Miami area exclusive late show, what a dog. We were contracted to play it 12 weeks and by the third week we had maybe 10 people each night attend. Mike, do we know each other?
Rick Comer was manager June 3 1983.
The Suniland opens:
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The original single-screen Suniland Theatre was designed by architect Robert E. Collins, according to an item in the September 30, 1963, issue of Boxoffice Magazine which announced that construction had begun on the project.
Write to me at
Yes it is. I'v been trying to get a hold of you forever.
Oh my god! Is the Diane Walker I think it is?
AlAlvarez,
I managed the Suniland for a few years back in the early 80’s. I remember it well.
The last of Miami’s Florida State venues (Plitt by then) to close by the mid/late 80s, think a Luria’s (a Miami-based jewelry/luxury gift store chain) took the Suniland’s place. Luria’s itself went out of business in the 1990s.
Suniland becomes a twin.
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