AMC permanently closed its movie theater at the Franklin Mall in Northeast Philadelphia at the start of the year, the company said. The shuttering ends a run of more than 27 years for the 14-screen cinema, which had reached the end of its lease at the property.
Franklin Mall, formerly Franklin Mills and Philadelphia Mills, has undergone adjustments since Simon Property Group sold it last summer to Jones Lang LaSalle Personal Investment Group. The former owner acquired the grocery shopping center in 2007 and then retired it under the call of Philadelphia Mills in 2014. The assets were sold because Simon Property Group, the largest owner of grocery shopping in the United States, could not have repaid a $259 million loan.
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Major retailers at Franklin Mall include Burlington, Marshalls, Walmart and Dave & Buster’s. The mall’s website lists 89 stores still operating, but a number of storefronts remain vacant. Music store Sam Ash closed last spring before the mall was sold.
The property was appraised by the city last year at a value of $101.3 million, far below its $370 million appraisal when Simon Property Group bought it in 2007.
The mall’s new control may not be without delay for it to be discussed about the closure of the cinema and possible plans for the space. The AMC Theatre opened in December 1997 on the site of a former Sears Outlet store. The mall, which opened in 1989, was originally owned by the Mills Corporation.
The places closest to the AMC at the Franklin Shopping Center are located in Bensalem, where it has the Woodhaven Theater with 10 screens and a 24 -view theater at the Neshaminy Mall. The two have been open since the mid -1990s. Commercial Neshaminy was sold last year to the Commercial Company Realmian Realty, which is now presenting long -term plans for the site.
In Enter, AMC opened an eight-screen theater in the Philadelphia Mall Fashion District in 2019. That theater’s long run has been threatened through the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposed arena that would have replaced that mall component, but the team has abandoned plans this week in favor of components with Comcast Spectacor at a new arena in South Philadelphia. The fashion district site purchased through the 76ers, who are entering a 50-50 business to invest progression projects along East Market Street. not shared.
The AMC has closed more than 150 theaters in the U. S. from the CovVI-19 pandemic, as restrictions on internal gatherings have upended the industry and moved many new versions directly onto streaming platforms. Since then, the survival of movie channels has been supported in large part through a construction of ticket prices.
AMC explodes some other theater in Philadelphia at the Campus of the University of Temple at Broad Street. In addition to the small theaters such as the five -screens Ritz Five monument in Center City, which focuses on foreign and independent films, Cinemark has a six screens theater with University City near the Campus of the University of Pennsylvania. And in southern Philadelphia, in Columbus Boulevard, the former artist of Theater Regal United Runserview Plaza, who closed its doors in 2020, deserves to be rebuilt in the theater of 17 screens operated through Apple’s cinemas.