Legacy Theaters Staunton
90 Lee Jackson Highway,
Staunton,
VA
24401
90 Lee Jackson Highway,
Staunton,
VA
24401
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The Staunton Shopping Center was announced in 1963 and built in 1967/8. The Plaza Cinema Theatre was announced as an original tenant during the 1967 construction stage with a scheduled opening in early 1968. That opening did occur, albeit 15 months later on July 18, 1969 with “Oliver!” In advertising “Theatre” was often truncated. In 1978, R/C Theatres took on the venue dropping “Cinema” in favor of the Plaza Theatre moniker.
In November of 1985, the plaza announced that it would have a grand opening as the Staunton Mall in Fall 1986 in an expansion. In November of 1988, the venue was renamed Mall Movies as it was readying a transition to a multiplex. The full transition occurred on December 16, 1986 with R/C’s Mall Movies launching with “Land Before Time,” “Scrooged,” “Ernest Saves Christmas,” “My Stepmother was an Alien,” “Twins” and “Working Girl.” Regal purchased the location from R/C with its nameplate leaving on May 30, 1996 and becoming the Regal Staunton Mall Cinemas 6 the next day.
In 2010, the Mall was purchased by a new owner and there was a mutual agreement that Regal would vacate the property in favor of mall ownership as the Staunton Mall 6. The mall operator identified a new operator as Nova Cinemas on December 17, 2010 operating. Nova ankled the location on March 27, 2011 likely dreading a digital conversion.
That conversion would take place after a six year hiatus when Robert Harrison on December 15, 2017 as Legacy Theatres on a discount, sub-run policy. In 2017 and 2018, the mall slid into greyfield status - a term akin to a “dead mall.” It was a quick descent with the entire mall closing and being demolished. The theatre hung on until the announcement late in 2020.
According to research, this was first known as the “Plaza Cinema” dating back to the very beginning of the mall. The mall opened theater-less for almost a year in September of 1968. The Plaza Cinema opened in 1969 as a single-screener. It also went under an alternate name of “Staunton Plaza Cinema” and later “Staunton Mall Cinema”. It remained as a single-screener until converting into a 6-screen theater sometime in the late 1980s.
dan Bell filmed a video at this mall and showed the Theater exterior. https://youtu.be/l5NsVylQBWM
The theater closed in December 2020: Staunton, VA: Legacy Theaters - Staunton 6 Closed [Dec 4, 2020]
I don’t think this is open anymore.
An article about the cinema’s current status: View link