Regal Lebanon Valley will screen its apparent final showings on Sunday, Jan. 5.
Most Regal theaters have listings published for a month out or more, but according to the Lebanon theater’s website, no showings are scheduled at Regal Lebanon Valley (2200 Lebanon Valley Mall Road) after Sunday.
An employee at the theater said Friday morning that staff was devastated at the closure news. Regal Cinemas corporate office did not respond immediately to a request for comment. According to its website, Regal operates 420 theaters in 41 states.
Located at the Lebanon Valley Mall, Regal Lebanon Valley is the only remaining movie theater in Lebanon. It was shuttered temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic
Read More: Lebanon to temporarily lose only remaining movie theater
Additional theaters still operating in Lebanon County include the Allen Theatre & Salamander Book Store in Annville and Flagship Premium Cinemas in Palmyra.
In 2005, the North Lebanon Township property was purchased from the Lebanon Valley Mall Co. for $200,000 by Ragains Enterprises LLC, an operating subsidiary of Alliance Entertainment. The theatre opened as Great Escape Lebanon Valley 10 in 2006.
In 2012, Great Escape theaters – 25 in total, including the Lebanon location and another at Harrisburg Mall – were sold to Regal for $91 million. The sellers maintained an interest in seven of the theater properties, including the Lebanon theater, which was transferred to Ragains Theatre Holdings LLC in a $1 transaction later that year.
Great Escape Lebanon Valley 10 was rebranded as Regal Lebanon Valley in 2014.
That same year, the theater property was sold to the real estate investment trust (REIT) Spirit Master Funding IX for $5,584,390.86 and then transferred to Spirit Master Funding VIII LLC in a $10 transaction in early 2015.
In 2019, a $2.4 billion transaction saw the master trust Spirit MTA REIT sold to Hospitality Properties Trust, another REIT, which later changed its name to Service Properties Trust. The trust’s properties are operated by a subsidiary of The RMR Group Inc.
According to a memorandum of lease filed with the Lebanon County Recorder of Deeds, a 15-year lease was executed between Ragains Theatre Holdings LLC and Regal Cinemas Inc. on Nov. 29, 2012, with a 15-year initial term expiring in 2027, and options to nearly double that term. The memorandum states that the lease binds successors to both landlord and tenant.
Financial terms of the lease and other conditions, such as potential early termination clauses, were not documented in the memorandum.
Lebanon Valley Mall management said Friday that it had nothing to share regarding the theatre property as the mall does not own the property so any communication would need to come directly from its owners.
RMR Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
Incidentally, the Great Escape was not the first theater at the Lebanon Valley Mall, having been proceeded by Fox Theater. There was also the Howard Theatre at the Lebanon Plaza Mall, and in 2006 there was nearly another cinema center placed on the same spot by Marvin Troutman, founder of Cinema Centers Inc., which developed the Palmyra multiplex.
Read More:
- A peek back at Lebanon’s once-elegant Colonial Theater (1923-2000)
- Through the decades at Key Drive-In—Lebanon’s drive-in theater
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