ITHACA, N.Y.—According to a report from Business Insider, the Regal Cinema movie theater at the Shops at Ithaca Mall will be closing imminently. In total, 39 Regal locations around the country are on the chopping block as the company looks to cut spending after parent company Cineworld declared bankruptcy in September.
Business Insider based its reporting on a court filing made earlier this week by the company as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The Ithaca location is listed alongside five other New York locations in Buffalo, New York City, Mohegan Lake, Rochester and Williamsville.
It is not clear when the closures will take effect, but according to the court filing they will be starting in February.
A phone call to the theater was not answered, and a request for comment to Regal Cinemas was not immediately returned. The building has had a movie theater since it was opened as a four-screen Hoyts in 1976. It opened in a different part of the building as a Regal Cinema in 2007.
The Ithaca theater reopened after a long COVID-19 hiatus in May 2021, but parent company Cineworld stated that the closing of some theaters would hopefully allow them to keep others open longer even while business is reduced. The 39 new closings are in addition to 12 previously announced closings.
“The debtors are hopeful that these negotiations will lead to lease concessions and modifications that will obviate the need for [lease] rejection and enable additional theater sites to remain open,” Cineworld’s filing stated, according to Business Insider’s reporting.
It’s another tough blow to the mall, which has had a murky future for the last several years, similar to conventional shopping malls all over the country. The movies closing comes after Planet Fitness, which was directly across from Regal in the mall building, moved out of the building and across the street. Dick’s Sporting Goods also intends to leave the mall for a move closer to downtown Ithaca. On the other hand, Cayuga Health System did just make a significant investment at the location for a proposed stabilization center.