Firm weighs upgrade of Rockland theater

ROCKLAND – A new owner is weighing the costs of bringing the downtown Strand movie theater up to date.

John Crowley, a co-owner of Flagship Cinemas Inc., said last week he was surprised at what he found in the two-screen theater after the company closed on its purchase earlier this month. “It was great if you were running a theater in the 1930s,” Crowley said. “It’d be up to date.”

The company, based in Everett, Mass., operates a newly expanded 10-screen theater in Thomaston, as well as 10-screen theaters in Lewiston and Falmouth. It also operates a seven-screen theater in Oxford, as well as a theater in Massachusetts and one in Maryland, Crowley said.

In addition to old equipment, such as a carbon-arc projection system that would have been used in the 1940s, Crowley found one of the two speakers in one auditorium of the Rockland theater was inoperable.

“Deplorable,” is how he described the state of the theater. Flagship’s other theaters feature 27 speakers in each auditorium, he said.

Flagship brought in an equipment consultant from Baltimore to assess just what is needed to upgrade the theater, Crowley said. The Dolby sound processing equipment – without speakers and other hardware – can cost more than $10,000, he said.

By mid-January, the company will make its decision on whether it will proceed with an upgrade. Crowley said adding another screen at The Strand is not possible.

Flagship bought the theater when its former owner contacted the company and offered it for sale, Crowley said. The theater was purchased from longtime owner Meredith Dondis almost two years ago by a New Jersey company.