Harkins to replace Camelview 5 with 14-screen luxury theater
Dec 19, 2013, 2:25 PM | Updated: 2:25 pm
PHOENIX — It’s official: Harkins Theatre is closing the Camelview 5 to put up a 14-screen complex at Scottsdale Fashion Square, the company announced Thursday.
The Camelview at Fashion Square is expected to open in the spring of 2015.
The announcement comes a few months after the mall had sumbitted a proposal to develop about 142,000 square feet.
“We intend to transplant the soul of our beloved Camelview into this amazing new cinema,” said chain owner Dan Harkins in a released statement. The Harkins family established the business in 1933 with a single theater in Tempe.
Since then Harkins has become the sixth-largest theater chain on the continent.
Opponents of the decision had been protesting online for months, decrying the potential loss of independent and foreign films that the theater was famous locally for showing.
The Camelview 5 opened in 1973 with three screens.
