Southpark 3

Austin TX

Information for this tour was contributed by William T. Parr.

The Southpark 3 was built in 1983 and opened in June of that year with "Dune" in the first THX auditorium built in Austin. This was the fourth theatre built by Presidio Theatres of Austin, and the first of their luxury-style, which featured waterfall curtains in the big auditorium and THX in at least one auditorium and Dolby in the rest.

Presidio ran a big double-trunk ad in the paper when they opened this theatre boasting the THX, waterfall curtains, 70mm as well as the promise to Austin patrons they would not run a print if it was scratched. There were, incidentally, only three theatres built by Presidio that were considered luxury theatres. This one, the Lincoln 3, which was later made into 6 screens, and the Arbor 4, which was later made into a 7-plex. The Lincoln was the only one that had all three original theatres built with THX; the Annex 3 had all Dolby. Only the large screen at the Lincoln had waterfall curtains and 70mm. At the Arbor, three of the four original auditoriums had THX and 70mm with only the two large auditoriums having waterfall curtains.

The Southpark closed in 1988 after only five years in operation. This was due, in part, to the expected highway construction that was to happen in which the shopping center was going to lose all of its parking. Act III, having just taken over, did not want to deal with this particular location because the employees were in a profit-sharing agreement with Presidio. The highway construction has only begun with in the past two years, but had been scheduled to happen in 1989. As a result, the landlord let Act III close the theatre and the shopping center had it leveled to make way for parking that was lost two years ago when the freeway was being widened out in this section.

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Last featured 9/17/2003. Last edited 12/31/2005.

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