This Boise theater won’t reopen even after virus subsides. Here’s why — and what’s next
The Regal Edwards Boise Downtown theater will not reopen even after the coronavirus pandemic subsides.
Rob Gerbitz, CEO of Hendricks Commercial Properties, the owner of the BoDo District building at 760 W. Broad St., told the Statesman on Tuesday that Regal Theaters has permanently dimmed the two-story theater’s nine screens. Hendricks bought that building and two others in BoDo in 2017.
“They did not make it,” Gerbitz said by phone. “That was a struggling theater before we bought the property.”
The theater was the only theater for mainstream, first-run commercial movies in the downtown of Idaho’s capital city. The Flicks, an independent theater that shows independent, foreign and art films, remains open.
To survive, the theater needed modernizing with new technology, he said.
In January, Edwards added ScreenX to one of its screens at Boise Edwards 21 on Overland Road. That technology projects a film onto a theater’s side walls to give moviegoers a 270-degree panoramic view. But that kind of upgrade was never planned for the downtown theater.
“It’s unfortunate, but our goal is to take that and work with another theater group — we’re looking for a much smaller theater group that’s more food and experience-centric,” Gerbitz said.
Last month, Portland-based Living Room Theaters opened a nine-screen theater at the Bottleworks District in Indianapolis, owned by Hendricks. The theater includes an on-site restaurant and bar.
“It is an incredibly beautiful theater, and I was just there last week, and in talking with the manager she was really happy with the traffic,” he said.
There are no firm plans in place and no timetable for reopening the downtown theaters, he said.
Edwards and other theaters in the Treasure Valley closed in mid-March as the pandemic swept into Idaho. They reopened in August with now-familiar virus-safety requirements such as masks and social distancing. Some screens were showing old movies at discount prices before closing again in October. Cineworld Group, the British owner of Regal, which operates Edwards, suspended operations at all of its U.S. theaters because of financial challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Village Cinema and Cinemark Majestic Cinemas, both in Meridian, have remained open, along with Overland Park Cinemas in Boise and the Eagle Luxe.
