BIG PICTURE: Cinema Conversions Easier in Southwest than Orlando

ORLANDO-Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston entrepreneurs are recycling closed movie houses into furniture outlets, bookstores and dinner theaters while metro Orlando owners continue to debate the cost-effectiveness of cinema conversions.

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.”