“Almost every square inch is getting a makeover,” said UEC Vice President of Operations Steve Ross.
Ross said the most substantial renovations are in the lobby — including moving the box office from outside to inside, adding self-serve ticket kiosks and revamping the concession stand.
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“A TurboChef oven will be added for expanded food concepts,” Ross said.
He said other menu items that UEC has typically added to its other theatres are foods like Freschetta pizza, White Castle burgers, pretzel bites, funnel cake fries and Eisenberg hot dogs.
The bathrooms at Cinema 10 are also being renovated along with installing new flooring and repainting throughout the theater.
The exterior of the building is also being updated.
Shortly after taking ownership, reclining leather seats were installed in every theater as well as new carpet and wall coverings.
Other new roll outs were advance and online ticket services, a loyalty rewards program and a self-serve Coca-Cola machine with free refills.
The changes are welcomed by long-time movie-goers who, before UEC had taken ownership, had started to go to other cities to spend their money.
“Typically my wife and I, we would go to Dayton to see it or Huber Heights — or sometimes Columbus,” said Brock Engi. “We could’ve gone to Cinema 10 but we made that drive just because we wanted to be accommodated.”
But once the changes at the Springfield theater started to take shape, Engi found himself pulling into the parking lot to check them out. Now he’s excited to go back to the place that jump-started his love of going to the movies when he was a kid.
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“It’s kind of nostalgic in a way because that’s where I grew up,” he said. “I think one day when the little ones do come — that’ll be somewhere we take them too.”
Chakeres Theatres, Inc. sold the last remaining theater in the city to UEC for $800,000 after owning it for over 30 years, according to the Clark County Auditor’s website.
Tina Ryan, who’s lived in Springfield for over 50 years, said she’s probably been to Cinema 10 hundreds of times.
Describing the theater just a few years ago as “dark, dingy and sticky,” — she now describes how she looks forward to keeping her money in Springfield by going to the updated venue.
“I’m just happy that a company decided to come in and renovate and make it better for everybody else in Springfield,” she said.
UEC has said they are planning a grand re-opening soon to celebrate the changes, but a finalized date has not been set yet.
$2M —Total investment into Cinema 10 since UEC took ownership
$800,00 — Purchase price in 2018
10 — Screens at the theater
The News-Sun was the first news source to bring readers details about the new ownership at the city’s staple movie theater as well as its two rounds of renovations.
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