Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Mercede theater to be demolished
But memories of ‘the most beautiful theater’ will live on
PLANTATION – Plantation’s Mercede Cinema was billed as “the most beautiful theater in Broward County” for its opening in the 1970s, presenting classic films like “Taxi Driver” and “Jaws.”
With only four screens, it may have been tiny compared to many of today’s theaters. But it had big heart.
After closing several years ago, the moviehouse and other buildings are being knocked down to make way for redevelopment. Many moviegoers can’t help but reminisce about how the theater became a community fixture — a destination for romantic dates and summertime getaway for schoolkids who spent the whole day there, sneaking from one screening to another.
The small-town theater, at the northeast corner of Sunrise Boulevard and University Drive, mostly attracted scores of people from across northwest Broward. It broke up one of Mitch Ceasar’s earliest love interests. The Plantation resident had been dating his sweetie for more than a year. But a Woody Allen flick ended it all.
“She didn’t get any of the jokes,” Ceasar said. “Then I realized I should not be in that relationship.”
The 13.5-acre site was purchased in 1972 for $250,000. The theater was part of a shoppingoffice-leisure complex with 35 shops and a day care center. The $7 million development, known as a shopping arcade, began on the property in 1973 by owner John Mercede.
One of the earliest ads for “Mercede Cinema 4 Dreier Theater” showed it presenting “Taxi Driver” on two screens, “Hester Street” and “Jaws.” Parents could get away for a movie because babysitting services were available on site. Tickets were $1.
Keven Kane, 52, of Plantation, started going to Mercede with his grandparents in their 1969 convertible.
When he was 13 he hopped on his bicycle to “meet my crew on Saturdays and see movies” over popcorn. But by the time he was 16, he had lost interest and courted his high school sweetheart at a more impressive theater instead.
“We had outgrown it,” he said,
“and were more impressed with the big, fancy theaters. But when I realized it was gone it was sort of a melancholy feeling. It’s a symbol of how things have changed. That theater today couldn’t survive, a small neighborhood theater.”
There were efforts to change and meet everchanging movie-going trends. One of those changes came in 2006 when it was renamed Plantation Cross Roads. The theater boasted remodeled seating, restrooms and a concession stand.
But the number of patrons “started to thin out more and more,” Ceasar said. “I lived through all the incarnations, hoping it
would come back. It would be closed for months. They painted the floors, cleaned it up. But once you got back, it was more or less the same theater.”
Some of the theater’s adjacent office buildings also are being demolished to make way for redevelopment. County property records show Miami-based Core Plantation bought the five parcels of land last year for $8,670,000, including the theater.
The retail space that’s there now will stay, but the movie theater and two, three-story office buildings are being knocked down, according to Adam Greenberg, principal of Core Investment Management.
That is expected to be complete in about two months. On the newly purchased 7-acre site will rise a new retail and office complex,
which also will cap out at about three stories. Greenberg said the new project will have a “more modern feel.”
Ceasar called it the “passing of another community monument. It’s now part of a bygone era. It was a true neighborhood theater. It wasn’t part of a giant chain, it didn’t have the fancy equipment, it didn’t have the best sound system. But you would literally see people you knew.”
Longtime residents will remain nostalgic about the Mercede. They’ll remember the fresh popcorn, teens working behind the counters and seats that didn’t recline.
Resident Bryan Sklar, 57, rode his bike to the theater, along Peters Road, when there was no traffic. “We’d sneak between the theaters if we could — go the bathroom and then go to another movie.”
As he got older, he and his friends opted for the 9 p.m. shows to avoid the patrons from Sunrise Lakes. “They would talk during the movie,” he said of the seniors.
Toby Srebnik, 47, who lived in Sunrise in his youth, “went on one of my first dates there — well, if seeing Victor Victoria with a girl when I was 10 can be considered a date.”
Stephen Gorey, 51, recalls his mother taking him to the Mercede as a child.
“My mother used to take us there ’cause it was cheaper. I think it was cheap and easy to get three kids to. When my kids were young I took them there for that reason.
“It was a regular pit stop of our youth.”