Chicago Movie Theaters Keep Shuttering, Posing Costly Challenge For Landlords When the Showplace Icon movie theater shuttered late last month after 15 years in operation in the South Loop, it became the latest in a growing number of vacant cinemas across Chicago. A century ago, Chicago was home to more than 100 movie theaters. Now, there are just 15 cinema locations within the city limits, almost all in the Loop and on the city’s North Side, WBEZ Chicago reported. When movie theaters shutter, their owners are left with real estate that poses a major challenge to repurpose, with sloped, concrete floors and windowless rooms that leave a limited pool of alternative tenants able to fill the void, landlords tell Bisnow. 
“It is very, very costly to replace cinemas,” said Fred Battisti, chief revenue officer at First National Realty Partners.Battisti, who recently converted a former Cinemark Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, into a trampoline park, said he makes sure his team has spoken to every other theater… Read the full story here. | | |
