Fashion Square
120 Fashion Square, La Habra, CA.

Specifications

    Operators: AMC/Krikorian Theatres/Regal
    Status: Demolished
    Opened: 8/27/69
    Closed: 
    Current Use:  Theatre Parking
    Screens: 4
    Seating: Slope (1,150 seats)

Profile

The Fashion Square 4 was AMC’s first theatre on the West Coast and billed as the first freestanding fourplex in the world. Built at a cost of $600,000, the theatre was an early entry in AMC’s emergence as a national presence and a forerunner of the shoebox design that would dominate the industry for the next twenty years.

Located beside the heavily trafficked Imperial Hwy., the Fashion Square 4 was a generic box style building, featuring a red and gold themed interior, that housed four irregularly shaped auditoriums. The fixed masking, low end projection, and mono sound were far from crowd pleasers, but the, then novel, concept of a four plex theatre drew large audiences to the small venue. AMC continued operation of the theatre in to the 1990’s, but ever increasing audience expectations and the emergence of higher quality multiplexes resulted in the dated Fashion Square 4 being closed in January of 1992.

Within a year of it’s initial closing, the Fashion Square theatre was picked up by Krikorian Theatres, as the company’s first move in to Orange County. Krikorian ran the theatre for another four years, before selling the venue, as part of a seven theatre deal, to Knoxville, TN. based Regal Theatres in 1996. Regal managed to limp along with the Fashion 4 in to the late 90’s, converting the booking format to second run. However, by the turn of the century, the Fashion Square 4 was closed for good, having managed to stay in business for nearly three decades.

In 2000, the theatre and most of the shopping complex were demolished to make way for an updated strip mall. Today, the Regal La Habra 16 sits near the original site of Fashion Square 4.

Trivia

The two large auditoriums sat 375, the twin small houses sat 200.

While designed to economize operations, the initial management structure called for a “house manager” to be assigned for each auditorium. This early multi-plex management structure was quickly foresaken, in favor of a more streemlined management style (one or two “on duty” managers overseeing the entire complex).

Images

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