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This site was eventually the home of MJR Marketplace Cinema 20. The MJR complex was a brand new build on the same lot. It was successful which pretty much proves National Amusements just gave up too soon.
Source: Detroit News
Thats a wrap for Showcase Cinemas Sterling Heights movie theater to close on Sunday By Mike Wowk / The Detroit News STERLING HEIGHTS —
The Showcase Cinemas, a fixture at 15 Mile and Van Dyke for 30 years, will close its doors permanently after the last show Sunday night, an apparent casualty of larger and more up-to-date movie theaters nearby. No decision has been made on what will happen to the building and parking lot that houses the 15-screen theater complex, said Jennifer Hanson, a spokeswoman for National Amusements of Dedham, Mass., its owner. “The property is on the market, and we’ve been in general talks with a few prospective buyers,” Hanson said, “but (there’s) nothing definitive yet.”
Joe Simmons is one regular customer who said he will miss the Showcase theater. Although he lives in Fort Wayne, Ind., Simmons works for a carnival that sets up next door to the Sterling Heights theater for one week each year. The carnival, Mid-America Shows, is there again this week. And Simmons, as he has done each of the past several years that he’s in town, sees movies at the Showcase Cinemas with friends in his spare time. “They charge (only) $5.50 if you go in before 6 p.m, and a lot of theaters don’t do that,” Simmons said. “They show new movies. I’m going to miss it.”
The Showcase complex opened as a five-screen theater in 1974. At least two nearby single-screen theaters in Sterling Heights closed a few years later. Showcase added 10 screens between 1974 and 1988, Hanson said. But business dropped off sharply after the opening in November 1999 of the AMC Forum 30, a 30-screen theater at Hall and Mound in Sterling Heights. Features at the AMC complex include stadium seating, in which seats are banked more steeply than in a traditional auditorium. “We’ve seen our patrons become used to the high-end amenities found in (newer) movie theaters,” Hanson said. She blamed the closing on “declining economics.” The roughly 40 part-time and full-time employees of the Showcase complex in Sterling Heights will be offered jobs at the chain’s other Metro Detroit theaters, Hanson said.