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Theater Closing on Chicago’s Westside
posted by
DeaconBlues
on
June 11, 2007 at 7:45 am
CHICAGO, IL — It becomes my sad duty to report that the Inner City Entertainment’s(I.C.E.) Lawndale Theatre here in Chicago’s Lawndale Community was closed and boarded-up permanently this past Monday due to declining attendance. Ironically this theater is only two blocks from the old building that was formally B&K’s Central Park Theater.
Comments (6)
Did Marcus acquiring ICE have anything to do with this?
What happened? These ICE theatres seemed to be a huge success when they first opened?
This raises some questions:
1) What to do with a nearly new theatre building? Would the areas these theatres are in support a gym or a Best Buy?
2) Who, if anybody, would be willing to take these theatres over? I think the only hope would be if Keresotas (sp?) becomes interested.
3) Could anyone imagine Village Theatres acquiring these? Village is certain to be out of business soon!
Ice closed two of their three theatres in Chicago. They closed the one in Lawndale and the one on 62nd & Western. The Chatam 14 is still open. I am a former employee of the Quarry theatre in Hodgkins, IL. The theatre is almost identical to those that were operated by ICE in Chicago since they were all originally built by Cineplex Odeon. The Quarry is still in great condition, and since all of the theatres were built at roughly the same time the ones operated by ICE should be in good condition too as long as management did proper upkeep on the their locations. Their wasn’t anything written about the closings in the Chicago newspapers that I could find. The only notice was that in the add space in the newspapers where the showtimes for those theatres were was now a notice saying theatre closed please visit our Chatam location. Does anyone know why these theatres were closed?
I could not imagine Village Theaters taking over. They will run it down for a few years and then close again. Kerasotes Theaters and Classic Cinemas can run these theaters better than Village Theaters.
These theaters were originally opened by Cineplex Odeon and later taken over by Loews/Cineplex. Somehow General Cinema took over the Lawndale and 62nd and Western. In 2002, when AMC bought General Cinema, Marcus bought all three theaters.
Jim,
I think the best hope for these two theatres would be for Kerasotes to take over. I don’t think that CC wants to operate in the city. I certainly wouldn’t want Village to take over.
I emailed ICE a few days ago and received a response from the President of the company. She said that both theatres have underperformed since they opened. The Lawndale location is currently for sale, and the Western location has been under contract for some time and the theatre will be demolished and a larger shopping center will be built in its place. The Chatam location is financialy strong and there are no intentions to close it.