Charlestowne 18
3740 E. Main Street,
St. Charles,
IL
60174
3740 E. Main Street,
St. Charles,
IL
60174
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This opened as Regal Charlestowne Mall 18 on November 5th, 1999. It reopened as Charlestown 18 by Classic Cinemas on September 28th, 2001. Both grand opening ads in the photo section.
recent news stated one of the auditoriums will be upgraded to DTS' new “immersive audio” DTS-X systems.
At the time Regal openned this theatre, Classic Cinemas was already running the Historic Arcada Theatre and the Foxfield theatre in St. Charles. The Foxfield had been recently renovated by Classic Cinemas from four to seven screens with state of the art equipment and Stadium seeting. Regal had committed to the project and continued to build anyways. 26 screens in St. Charles proved to be to many. Business was split between the three locations and finances were tight. The overhead cost of an 18 screen theatre proved to be to much and Regal pulled out. Shortly after that, the mall management company contacted Classic Cinemas about taking over the Charlestowne 18. One of the conditions was closing the other two locations. The owners of the Arcada Theatre (the Franks) had already decides to change that site to more live theatre events. With that lease about up and the potential to sell the Foxfield property Classic Cinemas decide to take over the Charlestowne 18 to keep yet another competitor from coming into the market. After a few rough monthes of adjusting managerial style and correcting mechanical problems with this relatively new facility, the theatre started to show a profit and now business is booming.
Who knows……but Classic closed Foxfield, SUPPOSEDLY closed Arcada, but was bought by some other company (see Arcada Listing) and has been reopened, shut down, renovated and yada yada over the years. Foxfield remains closed. I don’t think Regal knew how to run it right or something, or felt it did enough business. But once Classic bought it and closed Foxfield business has boomed! They have stolen a lot of business from Randall 16 because it was a much more modern theater……BUT Randall is in the proces of renovations and adding an IMAX, I just added Randall myself and it should show up soon on this website………Classic is up for some competition now cuz Randall is really nice now!
Why did Regal sell this after only two years?
This theatre did in the nearby Foxfield.