ENID, OK - Mayor David Mason gave an update on the movie theater situation in Enid during a video episode of Ask Mason on the City of Enid Facebook page. He spoke about the fact that the last movie theater ownership was a national chain and they had to shut their theaters down due to COVID.
After 18 months of being shut down there was a lag time in creating and getting movies that patrons wanted to see. Mason said the chain that owned the Enid theater filed for bankruptcy and was never able to reopen our theater.
Many small towns that were not owned by larger chains were able to reopen their smaller theaters with the help of local civic groups and organizations. Unfortunately this option was not available for Enid but did afford many of the smaller towns like Fairview and Kingfisher to operate their own movie theaters.
The City of Enid then worked for two years on a $20 million deal with S & K Cinema Holdings Group, a private entity, for a 54,000-square-foot family entertainment facility with a new movie theater to be located on Garland Road.
The City of Enid put up money for a small loan in order to get an equity position so this group could go get financing. Following the slow recovery from COVID S & K Cinema Holdings Group was unable to get the financing they needed to secure the deal.
The agreement for the nine movie screen theater with duck pin bowling and a state-of-the-art arcade that was to be built on Garland is now dead.
Mayor Mason then said, "When one door closes, it's ironic how another one opens up." Only a few weeks after that deal fell through a chain contacted ERDA and said they wanted to talk about a theater in the Enid area.
Mason said, "We are not going to do another two year negotiation. We have allowed six months and that was as of about a month ago to either get an agreement so that a project can get underway or we're movin' on as a city to someone else that would be interested." He said other chains are now showing interest in Enid so we're not going to burn up another two years like we have in the past.
Hopefully in the next five months we'll have an announcement but if not we'll move on to the next group. Mason said, "At some point we're going to figure out how we can get a movie theater here in Enid."
The City of Enid and ERDA have hundreds and hundreds of hours put into this project, whether it's been securing land for an incentive, showing people around town or working loans with local banks. The Mayor says it's not due to lack of effort that we don't have a movie theater and he believes eventually we will have one.
Should Enid not be able to secure a brand new movie theater deal would residents of Enid be willing to watch movies in the old mall location? If a few of the theaters were updated and the theaters were managed correctly would you go see a movie there?
