Sacramento Century Dome Theater Shows Final Film As Developer Gears Up For Demolition

By Abbott Dutton

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — After almost 50 years the Century dome theater in Sacramento County is about to go dark.

The historic building showed its last film on Monday, and demolition crews are expected to get to work in a couple of weeks.

By the fall, the theater will be gone and instead there will be an expanded Howe 'Bout Arden shopping center that will include a brand-new 14-screen theater. The first domes were demolished last summer, despite efforts to keep the mid-century modern architecture.

A petition failed to stop the developers, but organizers like Jesse Skeen aren't giving up.

"I would implore anyone to go back to the drawing board and see what these theaters were like when they were brand new, not what they are now, and give us the modern equivalent of that," he said.

"This would be a huge mistake to lose these domes," said Martin Anaya with the Sacramento Film Festival. "This is an iconic piece of history. it's a piece of Sacramento history and it's something that needs to be preserved and protected."

Many of the moviegoers tonight didn't know it was the last night until they saw the signs and realized the only thing coming soon was a new theater.

Cathy Stricklin saw Star Wars in 1978 at teh theater, because it was one of the few theaters to show it in a 70mm format.

"It's like you were in the movie you were experiencing that movie," she said.

The new theater is slated to open in October.