Im sorry but the americana closed because amc had lost so much money on the property that they decided to close it. It was not because the screen had been slit because you see a few years after the theatre had sat closed in the summer of 1988 i had to be driving by and saw that there was activity there i went inside just to see if the place was reopening and sure enough Tommy (cant remember his last name) was cleaning he was reopening it as a dollar house(ALL SEATS ALL SHOWS $1.00) but the place had been left standing after amc left and no one had bothered keeping it up so years of dirt and grime had collected all through out the place. I asked tommy if he was hiring yet and he said yes and hired me on the spot to start help cleaning. He asked if i could start in the auditorum and shampoo the carpet he told me where the breaker box was in the booth to turn on the lights i turned them on and as i decided to start at the front by the screen and it was not torn at all. I remember cleaning the chandalier it took me a week to clean all the crystal pedals that were on it. If i remember right it had at least 1000 pedals in the lobby chandalier. I remember also that the restroom was up stairs and they were very dirty. I asked Tommy at the end of the day when did he sign the lease on the place and it just so when i stopped by he only had the lease to the americana on a few hours. On Grand Reopening Day we showed THE GATE RATED R (lol) the whole day i think we only had about 100 people or so that friday and a few more sat and sunday. We were open only several weeks before the AMERICANA was closed for the final time. Since i worked there in 1988 it was never a movie theatre again. Like i said before after that it was a recording studio but other than that nother was in operation there until the libary gutted it and opened a branch libary.
Competion in odessa tx would be Hollywood theaters witha 7 screen theater and a 11 screen theater along with Century Theaters 12 screen and the city just restored the ector theater.
Just to clarify as far as the ticket prices are concerned they really dont have a say in ticket pricing because you see in the big markets the studios dictate the prices if we dont agree to charge a set price per terms of rental agreement inwhich lets say universal wants 7.25 per ticket charged and instead we were to charge 6.50 then the next time universal would not give us a print instead give it to another theater willing to charge what they want.
What Alot of people who are not in the business dont understand is that the theaters are a tight rope when it comes to getting studio prints and really this applys to major market and if the chains dint follow what the studios dictate then they dont get the prints no prints no theater and no place for customers to go to see movies. If there is to be change with ads being ran before features there must be less restrictions on the theater chains in relation to rental agreements and therefore that would allow theaters to lower ticket prices and concession prices by not having to rely on ads a good source of revenue.
I really dont like the ads either but since i am an assistant manager i understand because what the public does not understand is with a first run theater 70% to 90% of the box office sales go back to the film companys a first run theater must rely on sales from their concession stand to turn a profit and with those people out there who sneak in outside food into the theaters instead of buying from the concession stand hows a theater to make a profit? I can tell you a first run theater does not make a profit from their box office sales its imposible due to rental agreements with films companys and their requirment to take such a high percentage from the box office so in order to make make money fees that are collected are considerable for ads to be placed on screen and to top that eventually all theaters will have to convert to digial projection as with what happened with beta tapes film prints will be discontinued from production and features therfore will be shot digitalaly and theater projection booths will have to equipted with dlp cinema in order to download their features and that equipment is not cheap if theatres dont do it once the new format is online then they wont be able to show features. Everyone should consider this and understand it. Now i do Agree Chain could do a better job starting features on time as posted in ads ect. but if they have to go to court then the lawyer fees ect. have to be passed on in the form of higher concession prices cause if they din’t the they lose profits and are forced to close.
I remember now it has gone threw some renovations like a new roof and there was no seats in the place but a whole bunch of used seats were donated and i think new wiring was to be installed but they still nedded new heating and ac units along with repainting the lobby. This was all done before the new arts center was announced though. Just a note by former bosses father used to own the place and it did have an overhang sign with two sides but after the theatre was closed sometime afterwards the some of plexy glass fell off onto the sidewalk below and the city just instead of replacing it pulled the entire overhand off the building and never replaced it.
yes but nothing has been posted in the poster cases for a long time and i remember that there was after it was announced about the new performing arts center that the city was consintrating on the centers devoplment instead of aracdia. All i know is evrytime i drive by the arcadia there is nver nothing posted in the cases outside as before the new arts center they had listings all the time and also in the newspaper
I live here in kerrville and i dont think there is nothing going on at the arcadia because back in 2003 the new cathlen center for the performing arts opened just a few blocks away on juction highway(its the citys olds municipal auditorum) in a a partnership with playhouse2000. Since then there that i know of have been nothing going on with the theatre since the new performing arts center opened. Its very nice with state of the art lighting and sound along with new studuim seating. I read though that if plans go through with a new sort of mini riverwalk like san antonio has is built then plans call for Arcadia to be converted to a Dinner Theatre with the entrance being i guess from the back along the river walk and the vertical sigh being moved to the backside of the building that is from what i could tell with the drawing that was in the paper.
im sorry but its not the theatre you are thinking about is the old great hills 8 that gcc closed. Regal has closed the original arbor 7 and reopened the old Great Hills 8 just a little ways down the street from arbor. Regal remodled great hills and renamed it Arbor@Great Hills Trail, Its serves as a art house for the regal chain complete with a cafe. Mr Krouse is right the original arbor 7 is gone just go to simon.com the malls web site and you will see that the arbor is not listed on the malls map page where it used to be next to the parking garage.
update: i drove by the place and it still has power but the school district is using it as a store stuff right now the signs abouve each entrance to the theatres are still up and when i was there were lit up.
just to make a correction amc did not build the 14 screen complex after barton creek it was gcc who built it even after the problems with the old 5 screen then after the courts ordered gcc to close and sell off the assets to amc. Amc then converted the theatre to their chain
I remember this was closed long before gcc went into bankruptcy because get this you see GCC when they were scouting for locations cinemark decided to build movies12 just about at the most 8 miles at the most from the the far side of well branch along ih35 well gcc just took the first location they could get in wells branch because at that time alot of chains feared cinemark because of the way they were expanding and gcc thought by cinemark building on the out skirts of austin they it was just a prelewed to them moving into the austin market itself and gcc wanted to keep the market so they paid an unbelivable amount to lease the wells branch 8 so much infact that
even with all the hype gcc tryed to generate for the grand opening it was never able to bring in the amount of customers inorder to book big profile films as a result ever since its grand opening it was never able to generate revenue to pay for the high costly lease everymonth and to add insult to injury gcc faced legal bills over the Barton creek 5 issue so finally gcc just closed the wellbranch after negocating to get out of its lease. the original lease was for i was told for a 25 year period thats how disperate gcc was to upshow cinemark even though clearly after plans were announced about the 8 screen that it would not beable to compete with a 12 screen.
I can tell you i was working at the bridge creek 8 as a projectionist
on the last day of operation you see none of us knew what was going on i was upstairs at my desk when an irs agents entered the booth and told us that the theatre was closed right then and there i was asked to shut off the projectors and asked to leave i never even got my final paycheck. But what made this theatre so good to work at was one thing and that was every week to get our invetory upstairs into the room where it was kept all we had to do was place it on a big lift that came out of the roof in a big storage room once the lift took it up that is where it was moved off the lift and stored in that very same room. Also was a big big popper that was used in that room also and all we had to do to get popcorn down stairs was open a cute and in fell into a big wormer down stairs for conncession to use. No popcorn was ever popped downstairs. This theatre was equiped with christie projection lamp houses&platters and century heads. Amps were i believe JBL along with the speakers and kintex sound processors.
i remember that this theatre was actually closed by the city of austin for several code issues like bad wiring. It was last used as a discount house all show were only $1.00 therefore the chain that owned it at the time i believe it was Presideo Theatres i might be wrong but whoever owned it just barly kept the place up. I went there once and my shows made that sqeeking sound as you walked on the carpet in the theatre cause of all the stains and gum on it the screen where it was torn was repaired with grey ductape beening placed from behind the screen real bad screen presentation the apature plate was way over cut so thelight overbeld way over that black border and only one speaker was working behind the screen(center speaker).
My old boss told me that right before the theatre was to be converted for the libary that himself and someone else we both know went there and pulled the projection and sound equipment from it. They said that for years it had been used as a recording studio before it sat empty for many years after that. They said the giant screen that was in there had several rips in it and roof was leaking the greand old carpet molding and of course dirt and dust every where.
one thing i would like to point out is when santikos took it back from cinemark they remodled the conncession stant and cleaned the place up very well before it had over grown weeds and was in need of a paint job
barry lee
hey mark i used to be the assistant manager there in austin at the showplace 6 from 1992-1995. i am currently looking for employment got any leads for me.
Barry Lee
Im sorry but the americana closed because amc had lost so much money on the property that they decided to close it. It was not because the screen had been slit because you see a few years after the theatre had sat closed in the summer of 1988 i had to be driving by and saw that there was activity there i went inside just to see if the place was reopening and sure enough Tommy (cant remember his last name) was cleaning he was reopening it as a dollar house(ALL SEATS ALL SHOWS $1.00) but the place had been left standing after amc left and no one had bothered keeping it up so years of dirt and grime had collected all through out the place. I asked tommy if he was hiring yet and he said yes and hired me on the spot to start help cleaning. He asked if i could start in the auditorum and shampoo the carpet he told me where the breaker box was in the booth to turn on the lights i turned them on and as i decided to start at the front by the screen and it was not torn at all. I remember cleaning the chandalier it took me a week to clean all the crystal pedals that were on it. If i remember right it had at least 1000 pedals in the lobby chandalier. I remember also that the restroom was up stairs and they were very dirty. I asked Tommy at the end of the day when did he sign the lease on the place and it just so when i stopped by he only had the lease to the americana on a few hours. On Grand Reopening Day we showed THE GATE RATED R (lol) the whole day i think we only had about 100 people or so that friday and a few more sat and sunday. We were open only several weeks before the AMERICANA was closed for the final time. Since i worked there in 1988 it was never a movie theatre again. Like i said before after that it was a recording studio but other than that nother was in operation there until the libary gutted it and opened a branch libary.
This theater is still a lasertag i was just on their website.
Competion in odessa tx would be Hollywood theaters witha 7 screen theater and a 11 screen theater along with Century Theaters 12 screen and the city just restored the ector theater.
Hey longislandmovies j&j realty’s phone number is (432)367-2724 they are the ones selling the property.
I think its just over a million people
Just to clarify as far as the ticket prices are concerned they really dont have a say in ticket pricing because you see in the big markets the studios dictate the prices if we dont agree to charge a set price per terms of rental agreement inwhich lets say universal wants 7.25 per ticket charged and instead we were to charge 6.50 then the next time universal would not give us a print instead give it to another theater willing to charge what they want.
What Alot of people who are not in the business dont understand is that the theaters are a tight rope when it comes to getting studio prints and really this applys to major market and if the chains dint follow what the studios dictate then they dont get the prints no prints no theater and no place for customers to go to see movies. If there is to be change with ads being ran before features there must be less restrictions on the theater chains in relation to rental agreements and therefore that would allow theaters to lower ticket prices and concession prices by not having to rely on ads a good source of revenue.
I really dont like the ads either but since i am an assistant manager i understand because what the public does not understand is with a first run theater 70% to 90% of the box office sales go back to the film companys a first run theater must rely on sales from their concession stand to turn a profit and with those people out there who sneak in outside food into the theaters instead of buying from the concession stand hows a theater to make a profit? I can tell you a first run theater does not make a profit from their box office sales its imposible due to rental agreements with films companys and their requirment to take such a high percentage from the box office so in order to make make money fees that are collected are considerable for ads to be placed on screen and to top that eventually all theaters will have to convert to digial projection as with what happened with beta tapes film prints will be discontinued from production and features therfore will be shot digitalaly and theater projection booths will have to equipted with dlp cinema in order to download their features and that equipment is not cheap if theatres dont do it once the new format is online then they wont be able to show features. Everyone should consider this and understand it. Now i do Agree Chain could do a better job starting features on time as posted in ads ect. but if they have to go to court then the lawyer fees ect. have to be passed on in the form of higher concession prices cause if they din’t the they lose profits and are forced to close.
I remember now it has gone threw some renovations like a new roof and there was no seats in the place but a whole bunch of used seats were donated and i think new wiring was to be installed but they still nedded new heating and ac units along with repainting the lobby. This was all done before the new arts center was announced though. Just a note by former bosses father used to own the place and it did have an overhang sign with two sides but after the theatre was closed sometime afterwards the some of plexy glass fell off onto the sidewalk below and the city just instead of replacing it pulled the entire overhand off the building and never replaced it.
yes but nothing has been posted in the poster cases for a long time and i remember that there was after it was announced about the new performing arts center that the city was consintrating on the centers devoplment instead of aracdia. All i know is evrytime i drive by the arcadia there is nver nothing posted in the cases outside as before the new arts center they had listings all the time and also in the newspaper
I live here in kerrville and i dont think there is nothing going on at the arcadia because back in 2003 the new cathlen center for the performing arts opened just a few blocks away on juction highway(its the citys olds municipal auditorum) in a a partnership with playhouse2000. Since then there that i know of have been nothing going on with the theatre since the new performing arts center opened. Its very nice with state of the art lighting and sound along with new studuim seating. I read though that if plans go through with a new sort of mini riverwalk like san antonio has is built then plans call for Arcadia to be converted to a Dinner Theatre with the entrance being i guess from the back along the river walk and the vertical sigh being moved to the backside of the building that is from what i could tell with the drawing that was in the paper.
im sorry but its not the theatre you are thinking about is the old great hills 8 that gcc closed. Regal has closed the original arbor 7 and reopened the old Great Hills 8 just a little ways down the street from arbor. Regal remodled great hills and renamed it Arbor@Great Hills Trail, Its serves as a art house for the regal chain complete with a cafe. Mr Krouse is right the original arbor 7 is gone just go to simon.com the malls web site and you will see that the arbor is not listed on the malls map page where it used to be next to the parking garage.
update: i drove by the place and it still has power but the school district is using it as a store stuff right now the signs abouve each entrance to the theatres are still up and when i was there were lit up.
just to make a correction amc did not build the 14 screen complex after barton creek it was gcc who built it even after the problems with the old 5 screen then after the courts ordered gcc to close and sell off the assets to amc. Amc then converted the theatre to their chain
I remember this was closed long before gcc went into bankruptcy because get this you see GCC when they were scouting for locations cinemark decided to build movies12 just about at the most 8 miles at the most from the the far side of well branch along ih35 well gcc just took the first location they could get in wells branch because at that time alot of chains feared cinemark because of the way they were expanding and gcc thought by cinemark building on the out skirts of austin they it was just a prelewed to them moving into the austin market itself and gcc wanted to keep the market so they paid an unbelivable amount to lease the wells branch 8 so much infact that
even with all the hype gcc tryed to generate for the grand opening it was never able to bring in the amount of customers inorder to book big profile films as a result ever since its grand opening it was never able to generate revenue to pay for the high costly lease everymonth and to add insult to injury gcc faced legal bills over the Barton creek 5 issue so finally gcc just closed the wellbranch after negocating to get out of its lease. the original lease was for i was told for a 25 year period thats how disperate gcc was to upshow cinemark even though clearly after plans were announced about the 8 screen that it would not beable to compete with a 12 screen.
I can tell you i was working at the bridge creek 8 as a projectionist
on the last day of operation you see none of us knew what was going on i was upstairs at my desk when an irs agents entered the booth and told us that the theatre was closed right then and there i was asked to shut off the projectors and asked to leave i never even got my final paycheck. But what made this theatre so good to work at was one thing and that was every week to get our invetory upstairs into the room where it was kept all we had to do was place it on a big lift that came out of the roof in a big storage room once the lift took it up that is where it was moved off the lift and stored in that very same room. Also was a big big popper that was used in that room also and all we had to do to get popcorn down stairs was open a cute and in fell into a big wormer down stairs for conncession to use. No popcorn was ever popped downstairs. This theatre was equiped with christie projection lamp houses&platters and century heads. Amps were i believe JBL along with the speakers and kintex sound processors.
Tell me about it i saw the southwest premiere of George Staits movie Pure Country. I guess now a days money comes first to the heck with history.
i remember that this theatre was actually closed by the city of austin for several code issues like bad wiring. It was last used as a discount house all show were only $1.00 therefore the chain that owned it at the time i believe it was Presideo Theatres i might be wrong but whoever owned it just barly kept the place up. I went there once and my shows made that sqeeking sound as you walked on the carpet in the theatre cause of all the stains and gum on it the screen where it was torn was repaired with grey ductape beening placed from behind the screen real bad screen presentation the apature plate was way over cut so thelight overbeld way over that black border and only one speaker was working behind the screen(center speaker).
My old boss told me that right before the theatre was to be converted for the libary that himself and someone else we both know went there and pulled the projection and sound equipment from it. They said that for years it had been used as a recording studio before it sat empty for many years after that. They said the giant screen that was in there had several rips in it and roof was leaking the greand old carpet molding and of course dirt and dust every where.
one thing i would like to point out is when santikos took it back from cinemark they remodled the conncession stant and cleaned the place up very well before it had over grown weeds and was in need of a paint job
barry lee
hey mark i used to be the assistant manager there in austin at the showplace 6 from 1992-1995. i am currently looking for employment got any leads for me.
Barry Lee