History
The Park was built in 1940 by the architectural firm Kaplan & Sprachman, who designed over three hundred cinemas between the 1920s and 1960s, including the Vogue in Vancouver and the Uptown in Toronto. The Park opened on August 4, 1941 and was originally run by Odeon Theatres.
In 1984, Odeon Theatres became Cineplex Odeon Corporation, and in 1990 Cineplex Odeon decided not to renew the Park's lease. The theatre was taken over by Leonard Schein's Festival Cinemas, which at various times also has run the Ridge, the Plaza, the Varsity, the Starlight, the Vancouver East and Fifth Avenue Cinemas.
Alliance Atlantis bought Schein's company in 1998, and he remained in management there until 2001, when he decided to get out of the movie business. The Park was run by a partnership of Alliance and Famous Players for a few years, but they decided not to renew its lease in 2005. Schein, who was by then putting his efforts into projects such as the Canadian Cancer Society, Friends of Larry Campbell and Doctors Without Borders, hadn't been planning to get back into the movie business. However, phone calls from the building's landlord and local business owners and residents convinced him to lease the theatre and reopen it.
Read more about this topic: Park Theatre (Vancouver)
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