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Hastings 8 in danger
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
August 14, 2007 at 7:45 am
PASADENA, CA — I just visited the Pacific Hastings 8 theatre on 8/11/07, and found out from the employees working there that this theatre will be closing on 8/31/07 and demolished.
Contributed by Brenda Brubaker
Comments (9)
So I guess the AMC Santa Anita 16 and the Pacific Paseo did it. Kind of sad but not surprising.
Too bad they couldn’t try to do something with the original auditorium. I guess this will just become more parking spaces.
SO, so sad. This was a great theatre with a huge screen and a cavernous auditorium. Saw so many good and terrible films here – there have been rumblings about it closing for a long time. I’ll have to go visit before it meets its end.
The current plan calls for a Baby-R-Us store tobe built. Pacific Theatres does not own the theatre, it only operates it. The company that owns the land and shopping center has had a few analysis done on restoration & remodeling, but it was a quite bit more expensive with the seismic retrofit the building needs.
That might be a problem with the nearby Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena. A few theatres had to do this seismic retrofit to remain in business. Mann Theatres did the Hollywood and Fox theatres around the same time. The Warner Beverly Hills Theatre (Beverly, Pacific Beverly Hills) was razed because of costs in the retrofit.
What a waste. Not that this theater was anything really special but it deserved a lot more care and attention.
When the customers start going to other nearby theatres and the dollars vanish, you can only last so long. Before you have to pull the plug.
The Hastings fate has been sealed for some time. The theatre had been up for sale or leased for a long time. Pacific tryed to find a new theater company to come in a take over operations. There were no takers. There are very few Independent theater operator left in the area that could do that. The Theater needs some work. Some time last year Pacific took the theater off the market.
I guess Pacific and the landlord feels that building a new theater on the sites would not be supported by the local homeowner association. The local howowners came out against Pacific building a new theater in a near by shopping center. I understand the reason they oposed it, was over an obstructed view. I gussed they like the view of the freeway, gold line station and Apartment complx thats being built better.
The Mult-plex has become a fashion item. Statium seating, Digital Souind and Projection are all fashion items.For the theater companies and studios, the youth market is where its at. And the youth market likes new theaters.They have no customer loyality to the older theaters. Because of this life cycles of future movie houses will b much shorter.
I assume the restaurant next door will remain? I forgot the name.
Robins is the name. Stil open.