Tower Theatres at Arizona Pavilions in Marana announced today, via its website, that it will be closing this week, Thursday, March 28.
From mytowertheatres.com:
We must humbly express our sadness that this Thursday, March 28th, 2013, we are closing Tower Theatres.
We have celebrated five years, three months and 21 days as your center for Hollywood entertainment. Our little 12 screen building has served the community not just movies but private screenings, birthday parties, high school events, lock-ins, summer kids clubs (TREEHOUSE!), movie premieres, local independent films and as the host of Cornerstone Church for over 4 years.
…
It has been a pleasure to serve your community while doing one of the most enjoyable of American pastimes; watching movies. It is this shared experience that swallows our hearts and minds and sets us free into other worlds. It is why movies will always be with us.
Please continue supporting movies and experience them as directors everywhere envision them: in the theatre.
Kent Edwards,
Managing Partner
From Inside Tucson Business:
“We’d been facing bankruptcy over the past three years,” Edwards said in a phone interview, referencing a foreclosure notice and sale the theater faced in 2010.
“We thought we had worked our way out of it, but the landlord [Marana Cinemas Associates] decided to go a different direction and asked us to move.”
According to Edwards, Phoenix-based Harkins Theatres is in talks with the landlord, and should be in the space by May.
“We’re disappointed that it didn’t work out, but we want to thank everyone who supported us,” Edwards said. “We’re still going to be operating Grant Cinemas at Crossroads and Oracle View, and we hope that people will continue to support us there.”
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.
Sorry to hear of the Marana theatre closing. Markets and the lessons of economies are brutal ones to learn, especially in Pima County, in particularly Marana. My economic theory has always held that ” brains and the ability to amass large sums of money are NOT necessarily related.”
It is my opinion that there is not enough market there to have supported 12 independent screens, as profit margins in theatres are slim.
Usually it is the food and beverage that puts the Profit and Loss over the top.
I predict they will do much better in the other two locales.
For years, the Foothills Mall struggled after it went into the ground, competing heavily against the Tucson Mall, populated by what was then, high end retailers. The Marketing Director for the Tucson Mall told me she anticipated taking 33% of the market share from El Con and at least that much from FootHills, if not more.
Foothills Mall was heavily encouraged by the late Henry Quinto then President of the long gone Levy’s store at the old El Con Mall on Broadway. Foothills opened on almost the same day as Tucson Mall. It was an up hill struggle for a few years.
Reason? The foothills residents didn’t want to travel that far and Avra Valley folks weren’t attracted to high-end spending at Cele Petersons. The Ina Road market was not loaded with in-fill and it would be years away.
Ego drove the opening of Foothills, not economics and planning. Later, it caught on.
Harkins in Phoenix will run the theatre in Marana and absorb the costs much easier aa part of their corporate structure. Years from now, this will all blow over.
I hope the Economics Classes at the U of A start to fill up soon.
Roger Fulton
Former Mall Manager
El Con
Retired
Tucson
510-468-1104
Sorry to hear this. Of course, the reason this was our favorite theater is probably the reason they are closing: No hordes of unruly kids and teens! Oh, well, thanks Mr. Edwards for a great experience each time we went to see a movie at Tower.
I have often wondered why the FootHills mall was no where near the foothills.
It’s disheartening to hear this, but it shows you how much leverage the large cinema chains (AMC, Harkins, Century/Cinemark) have, especially when it comes to pushing towards digital projection. The multiplex chains can get massive deals to subsidize the cost of digital projectors while independents have to scrape for every screen.
Could Tower have made it under independent ownership? I think so. I wonder if it would have found more success devoting one or two screens to art-house pictures (sort of like a Loft Northwest), but then again, that would’ve been dependent on whether Tower was able to convert those screens for digital. I’m not sure if they had any digital projectors to begin with.
Another note: Before it opened, I remember reading about one of the auditoriums possibly being convertible to host stage productions, making it a venue for local theater groups. It sounded like a promising idea, but it never materialized.
YHS,
Christopher
Harkins Theaters was once a small fish in a big market until they sued the studios for a ton of money. They used the money to grow into a big fish. As a big fish they have put a number of small mom and pop movie theaters, like they used to be, out of business. I for one will not go to that theater anymore once Harkins takes it over. I’ll make the drive to the AMC Foothills.
Mrs. Harkins (heh), this isn’t an attack, but a clarification:
You’d prefer to frequent the huge, national chain that began the practice of building multiplexes (which is a much bigger reason as to why smaller movie theaters started closing) rather than the one that is, at the very least, Arizona-based?
In fact, the logic of “I don’t want to support a big fish, I’ll go ahead and support the whale” seems a bit off to me. But hey, whatever works.
The reason tower theaters is closing is because their service is not good, the place is dirty, their service is terrible and the projection is just not good. i currently work at the harkins theater in tucson and it’s honestly a great place to work. you can say it was economics that put tower out of business but in the end that’s just not true they lost customers because they couldn’t provide the same level of service the we do. you go up to anyone that works at my theater and they will honestly tell you that harkins tucson spectrum 18 is the nicest theater in town and we work hard to keep at that way. I’m not a manager either I’m one of the guys who gets you popcorn and cleans the theaters.
Hey, went there the 1st yr they opened. Totally boring setup, etc, never got the right “vibe” there, and never went back. Surprised to hear they were still open. When Harkins reopens, still wont go back. Very “Blah” experience is all I can remember.
I have a close friend in Phoenix that used to frequent a movie theatre that showed movies while serving beer,wine and food called Ferelli”s. The owner told him Harkins would flex their muscle with the film studios and keet them from getting films. They have since been forced to close their doors and credit Harkins with the main reason why….couldn’t get the film studios to give them product. That is sad. I’ll continue to frequent The Loft and support local business.