FROM CLASSIC FILMS TO MODERN ART

THE PLAZA Cinema in central London is to be turned into a small art house venue to make way for a retail store following disappointing ticket sales.
Site owners Chelsfield Plc say the lower Regent Street premises are no longer viable as a stand-alone cinema and are keen to turn around the site’s misfortunes. Following a ruling by planning bosses at Westminster Council, Chelsfield have received the go ahead to demolish the interior of the Grade II building and build a four-storey store. The move has the backing of the British Film Institute and work is expected to start within a year.
Currently, the Plaza has four screens spread over two levels with a capacity of 1,447. But under the new plans that capacity is to be halved. Papers lodged with Westminster Council reveal the plan is to modernise the venue and create a ‘smaller more flexibly designed cinema-space’ in the basement with seven screens seating 700.
The building was constructed as a cinema in 1926 and underwent renovations in the sixties and the seventies. Despite a major push in the nineties attendances failed to pick up as the Plaza never showed regular premieres or first run films and is situated close to other venues in Leicester Square.