Category:Plaza Theater, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Object location	40° 38′ 09″ N, 75° 28′ 56″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.635833; -75.482222

Plaza Theatre 

former movie theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States
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Instance of	movie theater destroyed building or structure
Location	Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Street address	1195 Mickley Road, Allentown, PA 18052
40° 38′ 15.26″ N, 75° 29′ 06.21″ W
Authority file  Q43381609 Reasonator Scholia Wikidocumentaries PetScan statistics WikiMap Locator tool KML file WikiShootMe OpenStreetMap Search depicted

The Plaza Theater, opened in July 1966 in the new Whitehall Mall, was the first "mall theater" in the Allentown area. Located just to the north of the Lehigh Valley Thurway, it opened as a single-screen 600-seat theater accessible only though the interior of the mall. The Plaza was built using similar decor that would be found in countless mall theaters built afterwards. It was, in essence a prototype for the mall theaters that would dominate the suburbs of Allentown in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1975, local ownership of the theater ended when it was taken over by the Budco chain in April. The theater became a multiplex in June 1979 when a second screen was added as part of an extension of the Whitehall Mall. That doubled its seating capacity to 1,200 seats (2x 600). When the Budco chain was taken over by AMC Theaters in Jan 1987, it was converted from a first-run to a second-run discount theater named AMC Plaza Twin. In Feb 1996, AMC announced the closure of the theater, and shut down the Plaza 2 cinema. However it was purchased by the Roxy Management Co. of Northampton who implemented a third-run film, $1.50 seat pricing policy and re-opened the Plaza 2.

In 1998, the Whitehall Mall received a $15 million renovation, where it was almost totally demalled and converted into a strip shopping center, except for a small portion near the theater. At the end of June 1999 the Plaza Whitehall Mall theater was shut down. Although the theater wasn't torn down, it wasn't in the malls plans to keep a theater there. After its closure, the Plaza sat vacant for a number of years.

Subsequently in 2005, the theater interior was gutted and combined with an unused section of the old H. Leh & Company (former Zollinger & Harned) anchor store. It was converted in to an Gold’s Gym location, with access though the mall interior. The facade was kept intact after the conversion.