Regal Arbor, longtime Austin art house movie theater, has closed
After almost two decades of screening movies that you couldn't find anywhere else in town, Austin's Regal Arbor 8 has closed its doors for good.
Regal Arbor 8 first turned on its projectors in October 2003.
"Thank you! It has been our pleasure to serve you at this theatre," a notice posted to the cinema's door, located at 9828 Great Hills Trail, read on Tuesday. "Regal Arbor @ Great Hills is now closed."
According to listings last week, there were not any films scheduled to screen at the theater after Sept. 23. The marquee was blank and the theater was dark and empty on Tuesday.
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The Regal chain's parent company, U.K.-based Cineworld Group, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. According to corporate real estate analysts Costar, the Arbor theater was among a slate of leases on unprofitable locations in the chain set to be off-loaded as part of the company's financial restructuring.
The Regal Arbor took over the space of the former Great Hills 8 theater, reopening it as an eight-screen theater with new carpet, seats and drapes and digital projectors throughout. Its opening followed the closure of nearby Regal Arbor 7, which was pushed out to make way for the Cheesecake Factory still operating in that spot.
"The closure of the old Arbor 7, unceremonious and mostly unchallenged, was met by moans from art-film lovers who lost an oasis of foreign and indie films in North Austin," the American-Statesman reported in 2003.
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Regal Arbor 8 took up that mantle, screening "alternative titles, indies, restored classics and first-run foreign movies," according to the Statesman. The theater opened with a sneak screening of "Mambo Italiano" and a series of Texas-tied films, including "Bottle Rocket" and "Pee-wee's Big Adventure."
Even at the time, such cinema was hard to find except at the Arbor, now-shuttered Dobie Theatre and then-fledgling Alamo Drafthouse. With the closure of Regal Arbor 8, Austin Film Society's AFS Cinema is Austinites' best bet for finding such releases today, along with some screenings at downtown Violet Crown Cinema and the various Drafthouse locations, which also show mainstream releases.
The fate of Regal Arbor 8 had been in question for years. In 2017, developers announced a project to revamp the Great Hills Market site, which was home to the theater. Regal Arbor 8 and Mexican restaurant Manuel's were slated for demolition to make way for a mixed-use development. The owners of Manuel’s in 2019 secured a lease renewal through the end of 2025, which was expected to keep the theater safe from the wrecking ball for a few years, too.
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After temporarily shuttering among widespread pandemic closures in spring of 2020, Regal Arbor 8 reopened that fall.
The remaining Regal locations in Austin are Gateway (9700 Stonelake Blvd. in North Austin), Westgate (4477 S. Lamar Blvd. in South Austin) and Metropolitan (901 Little Texas Lane in South Austin).
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Regal Arbor, longtime Austin art house movie theater, has closed
