Local investor gets into the movie business with $4.9 million purchase of CineMagic theatre

Jeff Kiger, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·2 min read

Nov. 16—ROCHESTER — A Med City real estate investor has followed a recent sale of land in northwest Rochester with a corresponding sequel of a deal by raising the curtain on a $4.9 million purchase of the

CineMagic Hollywood 12 Theatres

property.

Arnett Enterprises LLC, led by David Arnett, bought the property at 2171 Superior Drive NW, which includes the 21-year-old CineMagic movie theater and more than 8 acres. Arnett made a $1.49 million down payment at the deal's closing on Nov. 10, 2022.

This deal follows

Arnett's $4.77 million sale at the end October

of about 9.5 acres of developable open land that is bordered by Commerce Drive Northwest and Scott Road Northwest. That plot is just north of the Staybridge Suites hotel. Arnett still owns 5.5 acres of open land of that parcel that he split into three chunks.

This CineMagic sale means the property is shifting from one local investor to another.

Magic West Properties, LLC, which includes Rochester business leader Mike Adamson and two other investors, sold the property.

Magic West bought it in 2016

for $2.5 million from the Phoenix, Arizona-based Cole CN Rochester MN, LLC. Cole CN had acquired the theater for $7.4 million in June 2005 from CineMagic, when the Maple Grove movie theater firm reorganized because of a bankruptcy.

Olmsted County estimated the total market value of the CineMagic property at $2.23 million for 2021-2022.

This is the latest milestone in CineMagic's dramatic run in Rochester. The firm, led by President Steve Tripp, built the movie theater in 2001. It opened just months after Rochester developer Gus Chafoulias' then-new Chateau Theatre 14 began showing movies in northeast Rochester.

The two theaters were fierce competitors until CineMagic bought the Chateau theater from Chafoulias at the end of 2006. CineMagic had all of Rochester's movie business locked up for almost a year until Wehrenberg Theatres built and opened Galaxy 14 Cine in November 2007 in the Shoppes on Maine area in the southeast quadrant.

Marcus Theatres now owns Galaxy 14

.

The playing field changed again in 2005, when Midwest Theatres Corp., CineMagic's parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. While CineMagic sold the Hollywood 12 building, it kept its theater business rolling along there. Florida-based Paragon Theaters purchased in 2011 and re-launched the Chateau 14 Theater.

Paragon sold Chateau 14 to CMX Cinemas

in 2017.