College Point Multiplex
28 - 55 Ulmer Street,
Flushing,
NY
11354
28 - 55 Ulmer Street,
Flushing,
NY
11354
6 people
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The building will not be torn down. Elon Musk signed a 6 year lease for the space. The space will have 700 parking spots. It is unknown what his plans for the place are but original building woo be reconfigured.
theater last day May 7, 2024
announcement that College Point Multiplex Cinemas will close May 7 and eventually be replaced by a logistics center.
Regal opened the Tangram in Flushing in November 2021.
Jamaica movie theater set to close in June, while future of College Point theater in doubt
By Iryna Shkurhan
Posted on January 3, 2024
Queens is set to lose one of its few remaining movie theaters this year, and another one appears in jeopardy, amid a nationwide decline in the big screen industry.
The Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas will shut down in June, according to the Mattone Group Jamaica Company, a real estate investment firm that spearheaded bringing the theater to Jamaica, and also managed it over the past two decades. Meanwhile, the College Point Multiplex Cinemas, just five miles away, looks slated to close, with reports emerging last week that developers are in the process of transforming the cinema site into a distribution center.
The parent company of the two theaters, Showcase Cinemas, notified the owner of the Jamaica property last month that it does not plan on renewing the lease. Showcase initially signed on for a 20-year lease in 2002, and then received a short two-year extension in 2022, which is set to expire in June.
The Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas, a 15-plex cinema located on Jamaica Avenue, opened in May 2002 – the same month that the original Spider-Man movie was released. When the cinema first opened its doors, the operators were still running movies on giant rolls of film.
“We hate to see it go. It’s unfortunate, but a sign of the times,” said Michael Mattone, who recounted breaking ground on the previously vacant lot where Jamaica Center now stands in 2000. “We were hoping that they would stay, but I can’t say it came as a total surprise.”
Showcase Cinemas is owned by National Amusements, which collectively owns 1,500 theaters across the world under a variety of theater brands including Cinema de Lux and Multiplex Cinemas. Its theaters in the United States are almost exclusively in the Northeast.
The company has closed several theaters in the past year but has yet to formally announce the closure of the Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas. The future of the College Point Multiplex Cinemas appears in doubt. Last week, New York YIMBY reported that the real estate development firm, Triangle Equities, secured $50 Million in financing for a logistics facility on the 425,000-square-foot site where the theater on Ulmer St. is currently located.
The current plan is to redevelop the nine-acre area into a multi-story distribution center, given its central location and proximity to major roadways. The site is also home to Party Wow, a party supply store, and used to have a Toys “R” Us before it filed for bankruptcy in 2017.
Meanwhile, other theaters operated by Showcase Cinemas across the state have recently closed.
Tuesday marked the last day that the Linden Boulevard Multiplex Cinemas in East New York was open to moviegoers.
A statement on its website read, “It has been our pleasure to serve the Brooklyn community with great movie-going for many years. Due to a business decision, January 2, 2024 will be our last day of cinema operations. Showcase Cinemas is committed to providing a superior movie-going experience and we hope to see you at our Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas and College Point Multiplex Cinemas locations. Thank you for your patronage.”
But despite the company’s message to encourage moviegoers to visit its other locations, it appears that both Queens locations won’t be open for long.
QNS reached out to National Amusements for comment, but did not hear back by publication time.
The closures are part of a nationwide trend that left the industry scrambling to sell tickets amid a rise in streaming services, and then the pandemic further hurt the industry with temporary closures.
“Whereas other theaters did rebound. I don’t know that Jamaica really rebounded as well as some of the other theaters,” said Mattone. “So I think that may have also been part of some of the decision making.”
Mattone said that his investment group has already held preliminary conversations with other theater companies to explore the possibility of keeping a movie theater in Jamaica. But he couldn’t comment just yet on the specific companies in consideration. They are also considering other types of retailers. But he added that bringing in another theater tenant would be the most seamless option.
“I can’t think of the last new theater that opened in the area,” said Mattone. “There’s really been no new theaters that have opened in Queens in god knows how long.”
Queens residents who are looking to watch a movie on the big screen still have some options.
AMC has locations in Bay Terrace and Fresh Meadows. Regal UA also has theaters in Astoria and Forest Hills. There are also small independent theaters sprinkled throughout the borough such as the Cinemart Cinemas in Forest Hills and Fair Theater in East Elmhurst.
I’m always surprised they never added more screens here
For the celebration of Black History Month, a Fundraiser Event will be held here at the College Point Multiplex on Sunday, February 23, 2020 with a showing of the film “Just Mercy” with Jamie Fox. It is being sponsored by the Deaconess Board and Women’s Ministry of the Philadelphia Church. All attendees will also get a gourmet goodie bag with the reservation. Limited seating is available so e-mail for tickets for this event. No tickets will be sold at the box-office so if you want to join us e-mail Meghann as soon as you can. We will notify you here when we reach the cinema capacity and cut off sales at that time. So come on down to the College Point Multiplex for a great start to your Sunday activities. You can order tickets today. When you obtain your tikets directions to the College Point Multiplex are at the top of main page of this Multiplex. Don’t miss it!
Total seats 1161
Theatre opened May 14, 1999 Please update
As per their website, recliners are being installed next year here and in Yonkers..
Went to this theatre to see Hotel Transylvania in auditorium #4. The presentation was in RealD 3D and Sony 4K. They played a Sony Digital Cinema 4K snipe before the film, something I haven’t seen in a theatre before. This multiplex, or at least the auditorium I went in, was poorly EQ’d. Too irrative and loud, trailers before the film were too loud.
The Feature Presentation trailer I’ve mentioned earlier was replaced by a generic trailer that no longer bears the National Amusements name, but is immortalized albeit Showcase Cinemas.
I think the description was a bit too critical. I grew up on this theater before we moved. When we used to live in Flushing, NY, this was the place to go. Good concessions, mostly good auditoriums, and I remember there was also a Ben & Jerry’s here.
I went to the College Point Multiplex Cinemas for the first time in 1999, around when it opened, I think. The earliest film I remember seeing there was “Toy Story 2”, and if I’m not mistaken it was also shown in the then-new Dolby Digital Surround EX system (matrixed rear center channel, essentially). I was only four years old, and even then I was dazzled by the beautiful dye-transfer 35mm print and spacious Dolby EX sound.
Ever since then, this theater played a big part of my childhood, be it kids films, event films, adult films (that some I walked out of), Pixar films, pretty much any film a child growing up in the early-noughts would want to go to.
If I’m not mistaken, this cinema was also THX-certified for a short period of time, around 2005, I believe. But during that time, they never played a THX trailer, and the quality paled in comparison to the Loews Auditorium at the Loews Lincoln Square 13 & IMAX (now AMC). Even without THX, this was a decent place that showed first-run films in 35mm Dolby Digital (and EX in some auditoriums). A casual moviegoer couldn’t ask for more.
In 2008, one of the auditoriums was converted to digital for the wave of 3D films coming. I am unsure about the equipment used in this auditorium, but it had RealD technology. I have tons of RealD glasses with the old RealD logo from this theatre (and I also think Regal Countryside 20) before they started to tell the audience to recycle their glasses. Ever since I moved in the fall of 2008, I never got to see that theater again, until two years later.
In the summer of 2010, while visiting New York, me and a couple of friends saw “Despicable Me” in 2D at the College Point. It was opening night, last showing, and the 35mm print that was used looked older than a week to me! I mean, if a print has been showing for a week and looks like that, that would be fine, but this was on opening night! Probably earlier showings on that day looked better, but that was when I realized that College Point Multiplex was degrading in their 35mm presentations. Possibly to make way for D-Cinema, I guess.
On the same visit, I saw “Toy Story 3” in 2D with my dad one afternoon. As for the print, it seemed to have degraded, but worse since this film was a month old. I think during the last 20 minutes, the Dolby Digital track dropped out and it went to the backup Dolby SR track, that’s how bad the projectionists ruined it. Nonetheless, this was the last film I ever saw at the College Point Multiplex, and a very fitting one since it symbolizes the end of childhood, and my childhood with the College Point Multiplex, once a fine place for exhibition, has ended. Even more so fitting when the previous film in the series was the first film I saw there.
In 2011, looking back at it now seeing how it is, I learned that the entire theater has been converted to digital, with Sony 4K projectors. This isn’t a bad thing, unless they don’t do it right. This made me worry about a special National Amusements feature presentation trailer that has been so dear to my heart every time I visited the theater. I highly doubt that trailer will ever be converted to DCP, as it has been used as early as 2000-2001 I think, and the College Point played it in front of all their 35mm shows since then, even “Toy Story 3.” If I can describe it, it began with a light at a center, and little peepholes of light appeared one by one, each one appeared faster like a crescendo. All the light coming out of the peepholes formed the big N logo of National Amusements, and a byline reading this appears:
NATIONAL AMUSEMENTS
F E A T U R E P R E S E N T A T I O N
The soundtrack of the bumper was pretty cool. It demonstrated the power of a sound system in those shoebox multiplex auditoriums.
I’ve got the word from one of my NY friends that they still play this trailer in 2011, but only on film presentations. He also says that the digital auditoriums sounded worse than the film ones, which should have been the opposite. It’s kind of sad.
The College Point Multiplex lost its original splendor and now it’s just “another multiplex that enjoys to eat the patron’s hard-earned money and give them either the poison of scratched-up 35mm prints, or poorly-EQ’d uncompressed PCM audio that sounds compressed.”
R.I.P. College Point Multiplex 1999 – 2010
Your soul is dead, but Satan eats your caresses.
I like this theatre too. My only gripe is the ticket counter is usually poorly manned and the service is very slow. Normally I avoid the crowds by using the ticket kiosks but one machine was broken the last time I was there. I tried to report a malfunction to the clerks at the ticket counter but they seemed to have more than they could handle and ignored me.
ask to see the usher schedule and they put the seats of each aduitorium. I know the other National Amusement theatres put the seat count in screen order
Ha… OK, Lost! I’ll try not to be too conspicuous.
Pay no attention to the man in the corner with the pencil and scratch pad!
Thanks Lost… Guess I got confused as to the location of a couple of those smaller theaters. Theaters 4 and 9 are at the far end of their respective halls and not near center lobby (as 1 and 12 are). In any event, those 195-seat rooms are definitely on the small side – particularly in comparison with the other auditoriums. However, because of the great spacing between each row and the comfortably wide seats, I’d have to say that these seating figures make each room seem much smaller than it actually is.
If I might offer a kind word or two about this multiplex… When I get out to see a new release, this is usually the place I wind up. It’s convenient to my house and I find it to be very clean with generally crisp and great sounding presentation. As with most multiplexes, there are issues of over-projection where a small slice of image can be seen leaking off the screen and onto the dark masking material on either side. Another negative is the painfully slow service at the candy counter. They recently installed a seperate concession stand run by Nathan’s Famous and Sbarro’s pizza. The pizza is horrible (I’m not a fan of the Sbarro’s chain), but I won’t complain about those Nathan’s cheese fries!
The theater was built in a large two story building that also houses a Toys ‘R’ Us outlet. One enters a spacious ticket lobby with a twin set of box-office counters on either side of the escalators leading to the 2nd level. The escalators lead to a very spacious center hall lobby that runs the depth of the building. Ticket holder lines (when necessary) form along the railing that overlooks the escalators while in the other direction one will find twin concession stands on either side of the wall. At either end of the lobby are sets of cocktail tables and chairs and a large window wall looking out to either the East or West.
From the center of the lobby, a hallway runs off in either direction with 6 auditoriums along each path. There is a supplemental concession stand in each hall (opened only during peak times) as well as mulitple restrooms. Most of the auditoriums are spacious (I’m guessing in the 450-500 seat range) with very large wall to wall and slightly curved screens and high cielings. All the rooms are stadium style with lots of leg-room and comfortable high-back rocking chairs. No padding on the arm rest is a minor complaint. The 4 smaller auditoriums (probably half the size of the others) are the ones that are closest to the lobby… they are theaters 1, 6, 7 and 12. These are my least favorite rooms and the ones I try to avoid if it can be helped. I would put the total combined seating capacity at around 3600.
Also important to note is that I have found management here to be very responsive to complaints regarding presentation or climate-control issues within the auditorium.
P.S. One can see the roof of the old RKO Keith’s from the parking lot (the Toys ‘R’ Us side) as well as from the east-facing lobby windows.