AMC permanently closed its movie theater at the Franklin Mall in Northeast Philadelphia earlier this year, the company said. The closure ends a run of more than 27 years for the 14-screen movie theater, which had reached the end of its lease at the property.
Franklin Mall, formerly Franklin Mills and Philadelphia Mills, has seen some adjustments since Simon Property Group sold it last summer to private investment organization Jones Lang LaSalle. The previous owner acquired the mall in 2007 and then renamed it Philadelphia Mills in 2014. The assets were sold because Simon Property Group, the largest mall owner in the United States, could not repay 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 assets appraised in the city last year at a price of $101. 3 million, well below its valuation of $370 million when Simon Property Group bought it in 2007.
The mall’s new control may not be immediately reached for comment on the movie theater’s closure and potential plans for the space. The AMC Theater opened in December 1997 on the site of a former Sears factory. The shopping center, which opened in 1989, was originally owned by Mills Corporation.
AMC’s nearest locations to Franklin Mall are in Bensalem, where it has the 10-screen Woodhaven theater and a 24-screen theater at the Neshaminy Mall. Both have been open since the mid-to-late 1990’s. The Neshaminy Mall was sold last year to commercial real estate firm Paramount Realty, which is now developing future plans for the site.
In Center City, AMC opened an eight-screen movie theater in Philadelphia’s Fashion District at the grocery shopping center in 2019. The future of that theater was threatened by the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposed arena allotment that would have replaced that part of the mall, but the team abandoned those. is contemplating a partnership with Comcast Spectacor on a new stadium in South Philadelphia this week. The Fashion District site was purchased through the 76ers, who are embarking on a 50:50 investment to invest in progression allocations along East Market Street. Details of those plans have not been shared.
AMC has closed more than 150 theaters in the United States since the COVID-19 pandemic, when restrictions on indoor gatherings disrupted the industry and moved many new releases directly to streaming platforms. Since then, the survival of cinema chains has largely relied on Emerging Price Ticket Prices.
AMC still operates theater in Philadelphia, on the Temple University campus on Broad Street. In addition to smaller theaters like the five-screen Landmark Ritz Five in Center City, which focuses on foreign and independent films, Cinemark has a six-screen theater in University City, near the University of Pennsylvania campus. And in South Philadelphia, on Columbus Boulevard, the former Regal United Artists Riverview Plaza theater, closed in 2020, is scheduled to be redeveloped into a 17-screen movie theater operated through Apple Cinemas.