Chapel Hill Mall V
2000 Brittian Road,
Akron,
OH
44310
2000 Brittian Road,
Akron,
OH
44310
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 7 comments
Theater operated until October 17, 1996. Regal opened the Independence 10 less than a mile away on that date. From 1988-1996, General Cinemas operated 13 screens in the Chapel Hill Area. The Plaza Cinemas (8) is listed as being located in Cuyahoga Falls.
This venue became the Chapel Hill Mall 1-II-III on November 2, 1973. On June 3, 1983, it became the Chapel Hill Mall V. General Cinema closed it as the Chapel Hill Mall V on September 24, 1988 when it opened its new 8-plex the next day.
November 2nd, 1973 grand opening as a 3-plex in photo section.
October 19th, 1965 grand opening ad in photo section. It has a picture of the theatre.
Yeah,at our GCC we had to store cups in booth and the union operators were not happy about it.When I got to Georgia Square Mall 4 cinemas in Athens {on CT} we had more than enough room than we did at Regency Mall{on CT] all GCC.
By the time the Parmatown Cinema in Cleveland was built in 1967 the package HVAC units were in common use, and it had 8 big Carrier units up top. There were 2 units for the lobby and 3 for each auditorium. It was based on the same layout and design as the Chapel Hill Cinema, and had 2 large rooms upstairs over the rest rooms where the water chillers, boilers and air handlers were to be located. Although I had been in the Chapel Hill Cinema I didn’t work there and couldn’t go snooping around so I don’t know if the hvac equipment was in there, on the roof, or from a central plant. At Parmatown, the last-minute change to the package units left us with plenty of storage space, always in short supply in a theatre.
I believe that the space is now occupied by an Old Navy store, which is rather common practice…large space, few support columns. Makes for a good specialty retail. Although these old shopping mall/center cinemas are not ususally viable as first-run houses anymore, developers and real estate lessors are still aware of their architectural potential as open spaces that were/are not cheap to construct.
Fun fact about this mall…it has its own heating and chilled water plant, so none of the units, the old cinema included, has its own HVAC equipment. Mall owners quickly realized that this was too expensive and delayed the opening of a shopping center, but smaller, privately-owned shopping malls like Chapel Hill provided everything before packaged, drop-in HVAC took off in the 70s.