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Old 07-07-2012, 11:49 PM
 
80 posts, read 243,562 times
Reputation: 76

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I own a closed movie theater in Checotah, Oklahoma (Gentry Cinema). The building is still in good condition and has a lot of equipment still in it. It was renovated and remodeled in 2008. It closed in early 2010, a little over a year after its reopening. I have been trying to sell it since it closed, but so far everything I've tried has fallen through. So far, people who are interested don't have the resources to buy or even to rent, or they change their mind for other reasons. It wasn't open long enough to really get established, so there are no solid financial statements to show whether or not it is a good investment. Any new buyer would have to come up with their own business plan. They could not just walk in and expect to start making money. It will take work. Ongoing changes in the movie theater business will mean money will need to be spent soon for costly professional cinema grade digital projection equipment. This leaves most investors out. They want a guaranteed return.

So, this leaves me needing to find someone with a vision and desire to reopen the building. It wouldn't have to be a theater. It could be anything a person could come up with for such a facility. It has 2 auditoriums, one very small and one bigger. It has a concession stand with an adjacent seating area with tables. It has a separate upstairs space used for projection and a bonus area. The whole downstairs is handicap accessible and it has a fire sprinkler system. It is located in the center of town in the downtown area. There is lots of on-street parking. It is located in a town with 3,500 people in town, over 10,000 in the zip code and about 20,000 in the county. It is the only movie theater in the county. I have a lot of money tied up in it, but I don't plan to be the one to do anything with it, other than to sell it or rent it. I live far away now, and I don't have money to do anything with it. What would you do with this closed movie theater if it were yours? What type of business should I seek to fill it?
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Old 07-08-2012, 10:25 AM
 
Location: On The Road Full Time RVing
2,341 posts, read 3,478,607 times
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.
I saw in a town wear a movie theater was turn into a church,
which worked out ok because the seats were elevated for people to see easily.

Use the larger room for the main meeting room.

You have other rooms that can be used for different Sunday school class rooms.

Just an idea.
.
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Old 07-08-2012, 10:49 AM
 
17,877 posts, read 15,719,596 times
Reputation: 11649
Where is the closest competing Theater? Do most of the county just go there for movies? Is this competition located in a nice new strip mall, with walmart, home depot, department stores, Gamestop, foot locker etc?Just trying to get a feel for the business atmosphere. Have you thought about converting your theater into a performing arts theater instead of a big picture theater? Do the folk in your county enjoy that type of entertainment? You could work with the local schools if they such programs unless they have their own in house auditorium. What about a bingo hall? The thing is, you say you do not want to do anything with it, so you have to just sell it. Your realtor will market it for you. Anyone who has an idea for your property will come to you and your realtor. If you want to maybe churn some interest on here, then please tell us more details about the building.
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Old 07-08-2012, 11:50 AM
 
23,510 posts, read 69,890,838 times
Reputation: 48854
You have a white elephant. Sorry. Years back, there were a few of us that would try to re-open closed theatres. This was before the internet, before DVDs, and even then the minimum qualifications for a location to even be considered were - County seat with at least 15,000 population within a two mile radius, no competition within fifteen miles, a number of teens, and some growth in the area. In those days you could go in with sub-run and a $2.00 ticket and eak out a little moneyif the rent was minimal. There were a lot of distressed landlords willing to cut deals like free rent for six months and then a percentage of profits. I can't think of a single location like that which has remained viable in the past ten years.
Even the smaller mixed art and mainstream theatres in upscale areas with small population have largely gone out of business.

With the forced change to digital this year, your location will never be a movie theatre again, and your projection equipment has scrap value only. That is just the way it is.

The conversion to a church has been done many times, but the money you would see is minimal. You would have to think of it as a holding strategy to keep the building from deteriorating too much until something happens to make the property more valuable.

If the town was larger, I would suggest converting it to retail space or restaurant and hoping for the best. In your shoes, I wouldn't invest a dime more and would dump the property as quickly as possible, any way I could.

A company like Sonic (not the fast food chain - a theatre service company) might buy some stuff, but don't expect much. There is a glut of equipment from closed locations. Chances are it would end up in a shipping container going to Latin America or India.
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Old 07-08-2012, 05:55 PM
 
5,760 posts, read 11,492,874 times
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Gentlemen's Club / Breast Tavern?

Just helping you ponder.
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Old 07-08-2012, 10:26 PM
 
80 posts, read 243,562 times
Reputation: 76
I once had a church contact me about buying the building. They wanted to hold services in the building and also show movies too. I believe they realized there could be a conflict of interest in that plan. If they wanted to show mainstream films, it might conflict with their beliefs. Never heard from them again. The town has plenty of churches already, and the population isn't big enough to draw new ones out of nowhere.

I don't think a gentleman's club would go over very well in such a small conservative town.

I have considered that the place could work as retail space or a restaurant, but I have no money or plans to convert the place only in hopes to rent or sell. If someone wanted to pay for the conversion, then fine. I don't know how to attract businesses to a small town. Locals all know the place is for sale, so if they have an idea for such things, they know where to contact me. I think the concession area could easily be a small counter service type of cafe.

I had a realtor for a while, but I believe that all he was doing was listing the place on his website, putting it in the local paper, and listing it on some commercial website with less than stellar traffic. I don't think he had any other strategy to help me. So, I took on the challenge of listing it myself on some business and commercial property for sale websites. I posted it on some movie theater industry websites as well. I generated quite a few requests for information over time. I have even showed the place a number of times to potential buyers. As I said before, nobody who is interested ever seems to have the money. If they have the money, they usually are only interested in a guaranteed profit and not working to create a success for themselves.

The closest competing theater is 22 miles away in Muskogee, a city of 40,000 people. They have a couple of theaters, one with 6 screens and one with 10. Some people seemed to prefer going out to Muskogee and getting out of the small town, while others preferred going to our hometown cinema. We just weren't successful at attracting a large enough market share... at least not in the short amount of time we were open.

The theater is not located in a shiny new strip mall with Wal-Mart, etc. It is a historic downtown theater that we renovated and remodeled. They built a new Wal-Mart Super Center in town, but the expected development of additional stores on adjacent lots never materialized. The Wal-Mart does great, and it probably brings most county residents to this town to shop. There is no other Wal-Mart or similar big box store in the whole county. So, even though the theater isn't in the same shopping center, it isn't that far away.

The theater doesn't have the facilities needed to be a performing arts center. It would be challenging to add them in such a small place. The high school has a few plays and other performances, but they have their own auditorium. Even the elementary school can seat more people for a school play than will fit into the theater. The theater is small by most anyone's standards. One room seats 132 plus handicap spaces and the other seats 32 plus handicap spaces. This is small in a big city, but it's right sized for a small town. The right sized facility keeps costs down.

There is already a bingo hall/casino in town that is run by the Creek Indian Tribe.

As for churning interest on this site, I'd be happy to discuss the place with anybody who is interested. It may be a white elephant, but I have too much hard money tied up in it to just walk away. I can't afford to sell it for pennies on the dollar. If you know someone who is interested in finding some nice place in a small town to start a business, consider this low cost of living location. Checotah is way below the national average on cost of living. I am willing to work with a sincere buyer any way I can in order to make it happen.
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Old 07-08-2012, 11:31 PM
 
23,510 posts, read 69,890,838 times
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I feel your pain, but I urge you to be realistic. A number of years ago, I looked at a nice theatre front in Abbeville AL. The lobby still looked nice, but the roof of the auditorium had fallen in and there was a 4' caliper locust tree growing through one of the exit doors. A nice front in Homestead Florida was even worse, all that was left was the building face. I supervised a small circuit of theatres in the Florida Panhandle which all had better demographics and failed in the 1980s.

At best, your location could have only supported a very part-time manager/operator retired person, even if 35mm was going to continue to be around. Digital has effectively killed that. Perhaps someone could come in and use the front for a lunch counter - if the health dept would go along and the expanded permits were allowed - and the auditoriums could be converted into locker storage for personal goods. Anything would be better than letting things sit.

I have been in many many closed theatres. The seats will start to mold soon. Any duvatine or curtains will begin rotting. Carpet will mold and become odorous. Any equipment will begin to rust. Just sitting and waiting is not a good option.
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Old 07-09-2012, 06:15 PM
 
80 posts, read 243,562 times
Reputation: 76
We keep A/C or heat on as appropriate for the season, albeit not at the most comfortable temperatures. This keeps things a little dryer. I check on the place and clean up a bit whenever I can get back there. We are keeping the mold at bay. The place doesn't smell bad. The curtains don't seem prone to rot since they are synthetic. Rust hasn't been an issue either. I do agree that I need to do something with it, but so far there have been no offers at all. Tell me how to sell without an offer. It's not like I can let a bank take it. I don't have a mortgage on it. I just have nearly everything I have, plus my inheritance, tied up in it.

The roof isn't falling in on this place, and it's still in great shape, so please don't make it sound like it has sat neglected for 20 years. I agree that something needs to be done with it soon, and that is why I am considering other uses for the building. I don't expect to get what I put into it, but I can't walk away with a tiny fraction of it either. I would rather hold it for a while longer.

One thing that makes this place different is that it is possible to operate it for much less money than a bigger more expensive place. We actually made a small living from it. But, somebody needs new ideas, or a different business plan, or a totally different business. If I told you that the property taxes were only about $550 per year for the building and the equipment, or that all utilities only totaled less than an average of maybe $400 per month or less with all the new insulation and new heating and cooling systems... even running 2000 watt projection lamps and high wattage concession equipment. Operating expenses were very reasonable. The theater is one of the nicer buildings in downtown Checotah.

Checotah is located at the crossroads of two major highways, I-40 and U.S. 69. Each has a daily usage rate of about 17,000 vehicles. I could feature the theater building being used by someone who needs climate controlled storage space and a centralized location with easy access to much of the U.S.

The theater could house a lunch counter very easily. I installed the correct facilities to get a food license. We actually had one that would allow us to serve anything we wanted. We just didn't do much more with it than sell concessions during the movies. I had also considered converting the place into climate controlled rental storage lockers.

I've also considered making it into retail space and even downtown condos or apartments. Parking might be a problem for residential use, and I'm sure zoning exceptions would be required.

But, it doesn't really matter what ideas I come up with since I don't have more money to put into the place. That is why I am looking for someone with ideas and vision. The best I can do for anyone is maybe to provide a lease-to-own agreement to somebody with a good plan and good credit. The only problem with lease-to-own is that if I let someone make structural changes to the building and their business doesn't last, then I'm stuck with the latest incarnation, which might be worse than the current one. It's not like a big city where you can charge $17 per square foot per year plus CAM. My latest lease-to-own offer for the theater as a theater is $800 per month on a triple net lease, and I will apply lease payments toward future purchase.
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Old 07-09-2012, 07:31 PM
 
5,760 posts, read 11,492,874 times
Reputation: 4949
Did not like the Gentlemen's Club . . .

mkay a little more thinking.

When I think Oklahoma -- I think Casino.

Put on some War Paint, Feathers, and get some slot machines.
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Old 07-09-2012, 10:51 PM
 
23,510 posts, read 69,890,838 times
Reputation: 48854
"Tell me how to sell without an offer." ... "I just have nearly everything I have, plus my inheritance, tied up in it." ... "We actually made a small living from it."

Reality is a hard mistress. If we had kept our home in Florida, we would have been in a similar situation. As it is, I have another property that I thought I had sold come back at me. Separate the personal from the business aspects or you'll go nuts.

Go back in, open it back up, get or buy an audience, get word of mouth out and re-market. Or.. allow someone in with a management contract (risky, but better than nothing). Hope for a tornado. Threaten the community that you will put in a gentleman's club, but tell them and the churches that you will entertain other offers....

You may lose what you have. You know that. I've been there, done that. You pick up pieces and try to move on.

PM me. You are digging a deeper hole posting here.
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