Kent Plaza Theaters
140 Cherry Street,
Kent,
OH
44240
140 Cherry Street,
Kent,
OH
44240
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 4 comments
Edited from my July 9, 2024 (10:02 AM) comment:
The University Plaza Theaters opened its doors as a twin on May 7, 1969 with a double Clint Eastwood feature of “For A Few Dollars More” and “A Fistful Of Dollars” in Screen 1 and “Faces” in Screen 2. It was originally operated by Associated Theatres, while the nearby downtown Kent Theatre at the time was operated by the Pittsburgh Theatres Corporation (or Pittsburgh Theatres Corp). Cinemette Corporation of America later took over the Plaza for a very short period of time before the Pittsburgh Theatre Corporation (locally registered under the name Ohio Movies at the time) took it over.
A third screen was added in mid-1983, followed by an additional four more screens in late-March 1984, creating a seven-screen multiplex as the “Plaza 7”, but later renamed “Plaza Kent Theaters”. Its name was later swapped to just “Kent Plaza Theaters”. An eighth screen was added in 1995, and two more screens were added on November 27, 2002 after being taken over by Moviescoop, bringing a total to 10 screens.
now owned by movie scoop theaters
This theater in the 90’s had been added to from the original twin at the end of the strip plaza. They went down and took the whole plaza moved the lobby, and left the twinned shoebox cinema at the end of the hall.
At this time it was owned by a private owner who also rented the downtown twin that was trippled with a TINY screening room which may have been turned back into a cafe. I remember seeing the Flintstones move here, 2 people in a huge auditorium, and the next weekend the owners were locked out, and the theater was closed. because they stopped paying their bills along with the rent. This was in 93-94.
By the looks of the property, it appears to have been a National Amusements cinema originally. It is run independently now (by the same people who ran the old Kent Cinema on Main Street, now the Kent Stage), and perhaps was run as such since the early 90s when Regal took over certain National houses in NE Ohio (with the exception of Brookgate, for example, which was run as a budget cinema). This 70s, strip-shopping-plaza cinema remains first-run and popular, featuring auditoria added since the National days, particularly because it is the only movie house in the Kent area besides the Midway Drive-In between Kent and Ravenna.