The Showcase complex opened as a five-screen theater in 1974. At least two nearby single-screen theaters in Sterling Heights closed a few years later. Showcase added 10 screens between 1974 and 1988. Now, it appears that newer, larger cinemas have done it in.

A spokeswoman for National Amusements said when AMC Forum 30, a 30-screen theater at Hall and Mound in Sterling Heights, opened in November 1999, business began falling off at Showcase.

Jennifer Hanson of National Amusements says the company has had some preliminary talks with more than one developer. "The property is on the market," she says, "but nothing is definitive yet."

The closing means that two corners of the 15 Mile and Van Dyke intersection have vacant anchors. On the northwest corner, a vacant Kmart store anchors a neighborhood center.

Sterling Heights recently held a meeting with area property owners and commercial brokers looking for ways to combat the city's growing commercial vacancy concerns.

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