Only three out of 13 shuttered theaters in Central Florida have reopened under new ownership and new management in the past 18 months with the remainder in limbo. Dallas-Fort Worth-Houston has only experienced a half dozen cinema closings but owners in those markets are quickly converting the properties to other retail uses.

Vaughn Miller, president of Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Commercial's retail division, attributes the quick conversions to the area's demographics. He tells GlobeSt.com's Southwest bureau chief Connie Gore, "What do people do in Dallas and Fort Worth? They shop. They eat out. And they go to movies."

Willing buyers are waiting in the wings for shuttered cinema properties, brokers say. "It's good real estate," Greg McDonald, executive vice president of Dallas-based Weitzman Group, tells Gore. But anyone attempting a conversion should expect to pay $25 per sf to fill in the floor, McDonald says, unless it's similar to the bookstore venture in the former Houston movie house. At that site, rows of bookshelves line the sloping floor in place of seats.