Plans to demolish the now-closed Regal Barn Cinema in Doylestown Township are on track, as Brixmor Property Group this month received critical zoning variances needed to move forward.
The demolition plan includes the shuttered movie theater’s two stone-façade silos, a visual landmark for decades along Route 611.
At a previous zoning hearing board meeting to consider Brixmor’s request, township manager Stephanie Mason told the board she had looked into the silos’ history and found they have no historic value.
“They are deteriorating and they should probably go,” said Mason. “They are not historic in any way, shape or form. They were done aesthetically at the time because there used to be one at the old Barn Cinema.”
In 1997, AMC Theaters bought the Barn 5 and tore the building down. Regal Cinemas then purchased the property and built the Barn Plaza 14, adding two large stucco silos, to remember the Barn’s earlier life.
Brixmor also received the all-clear to raze the vacant Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill + Bar, where it wants to build two, as yet unnamed, restaurants and a retail store.
The movie theater site will hold three new “upscale” buildings, including 7,600-square-foot medical office space, 24,000 square feet of retail businesses and 9,000 square feet of restaurant use, Brixmor VP Bill Greimel said previously.
The property owners also received relief from the Doylestown Township Zoning Hearing Board for parking space stalls, drive-through stacking lanes and signage.
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