Ben Fields/The Independent
Cannonsburg — Management and tenants at the Kyova Mall are thankful for a computer-animated ogre and some fancy seating.
The opening of “Shrek the Third,” along with the timely opening of Phoenix Theater’s new 10-screen, stadium-seating movie theater, brought traffic to the shopping center that hadn’t been seen in ages.
“Every single store saw increased business over the weekend,” said mall manager Karen Dillow. “One owner even said to me, ‘It’s like the mall has a heartbeat again.’”
Ownership and management were hoping that would be the case.
A theater at the mall had been rumored almost since it opened, as the Cedar Knoll Galleria, in 1989.
The Galleria flat-lined in 2004. Its ownership went bankrupt and its creditors sold it at auction.
New ownership, Reyton Cedar Knoll LLC, had made aggressive changes since picking up the property, and the theater opening Friday was a culmination of efforts to bring the property back from the dead.
“The parking lot was more full than I had seen it in years,” Dillow said. “This past weekend was just nonstop.”
Phil Zacheretti, owner of the Knoxville-based Phoenix chain, said things turned out better than expected, despite construction delays that forced the Kyova theater to miss the opening weekend of blockbuster “Spider-man 3.”
The theater is showing the film, and will debut “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” on multiple screens starting Thursday.
“Construction is construction, and if you couldn’t be ready for ‘Spider-man,’ being ready for ‘Shrek’ was the next best thing you could do,” he said. “We have the new ‘Pirates’ movie starting, and with that and ‘Shrek,’ I think we’ve forgotten about missing the first weekend of ‘Spider-man.’”
Moviegoers swamped the new theater in its first weekend, and Zacheretti said he almost couldn’t get away from the hype of his newest theater.
“People were excited,” he said. “My wife and I, just to get away from everything, we went up to Dairy Queen to get a hot dog, and we sat down and the people in the next booth were talking about the theater.
“And so many people who came in off the street were saying they were just glad to see cars at the mall again,” he added. “They were saying ‘This is like it used to be.’ It’s fun to have that kind of impact on a community.”
BEN FIELDS can be reached at bfields@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2651.
