AMC Prestonwood 5

When the $100 million Prestonwood Town Center Mall opened, the drawings showed a theater external to the mall which would become the AMC Prestonwood 5 which opened on May 21, 1980. It was confused with the General Cinemas Prestonwood Village which had opened in 1979 and would be confused even more with the United Artists Prestonwood Creek V opening months after the AMC Prestonwood. All three theaters were in the same general area of North Dallas. The three theaters would become the second highest box office territory within the city trailing only the Central Zone. The AMC theater had one 70mm equipped screen but used automated projection systems including leading to non-union projection. Early in its operation, the Prestonwood’s screens were cuts, the ticket booth was wrecked, and damage to the auditoriums was caused likely due to the non-union situation though the Moving Picture Machine Operators Union denied the claim. The theater was home to the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and did brisk business.

The Prestonwood 5 would make national news becoming the first theater in the country to accept credit cards with the installation of a computerized ticketing system. The theater would also accept credit cards at the concession stand beginning in March and April of 1984. Obviously, that concept caught on quickly. But by the mid-1990s, with the theater nearing the end of its 20-year lease, Prestonwood Center was experiencing upheaval as malls were under pressure and the multiplex era was in full force leaving multiplexes like AMC’s Prestonwood vulnerable. To salvage the mall and AMC’s presence, mall operators Hahn and Co. proposed a $125 million facelift to include a 24-screen interior AMC Prestonwood on the east side of the center court. Anchors Lord & Taylor, Mervyn’s and Penny’s decided to exit the mall to make room for the entertainment/fashion concept. Then Dillards and Wards left leaving just Neiman Marcus as a functional anchor. Stores within the mall bailed.

The exodus was so quick that the proposed 24-screen AMC Prestonwood and associated retail facelift never started. Neiman Marcus was the very last retailer in the center as of 1999 as a fashion mall would be established in Plano miles North on the tollway and Cinemark would build just north of that project. Neiman would move there. So AMC fleed Prestonwood shortly after announcing in 1999 that it would build a 20-screen theater in the nearby Valley View Mall. That project would become the 16-screen AMC Valley View opening in 2004. And AMC would also build its Village on the Parkway 9 just about a football field’s distance away from the former GCC Prestonwood Village opening late in 2014. As for Prestonwood mall, it was partially demolished to become a dot.com high tech destination and when the dot.com bust occurred, that project foundered and the the entire complex was gone by 2004/5. That demolition took the former AMC theater with it though it had become a nightclub for a period of time called Times Square.