Town Square Entertainment purchases Moorlyn Theatre
OCEAN CITY — Town Square Entertainment has purchased the Moorlyn 4 Theatre at Moorlyn Terrace on the Ocean City Boardwalk and plans to resume showing movies.
If patterns hold true, the partners behind the purchase will make it a better movie-going experience by next summer.
On Thursday, Dec. 1, Town Square Entertainment, which operates three movie theaters, announced on its Facebook page that it was buying the historic Moorlyn Theater.
The company operates movie theaters on Tilton Road in Northfied, in Ventnor and in Stone Harbor.
“We at Town Square Entertainment are overwhelmingly pleased to announce that we have purchased the Moorlyn 4 Theatre in Ocean City, NJ!,” the company wrote.
“The Moorlyn has long been a dream project for us due to its incredibly rich history in serving Ocean City and surrounding community with entertainment since the early 1900s.
“The building has survived hurricanes, super storms, neglect, and even a 200 foot move to the east after the “Great Boardwalk Fire of 1927,” the post continued. “We have a lot of work ahead of us but we can promise you this: Ocean City will soon enjoy a better way to see a movie.”
Town Square Entertainment, which purchased the Moorlyn Theatre on Dec. 1, is owned by Brett Denafo of Northfield and Clint Bunting.
In 2019, Town Square Media invested $1.1 million into the former Tilton 9 Theater in Northfield, gutting the entire lobby to make way for a new concession and ticket counter. They removed seats from seven of the theaters to make way for full recliners and in the eighth, the former IMAX theater, they kept the upgraded leather seats but added a new sound system and projector.
“We have a system that is better than IMAX; it is going to be better sound and better picture,” Bunting said at the time, calling it TSX, or Town Square Experience.
“The motto will be ‘immerse yourself.’ It will be an immersive, all-encompassing experience,” he said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the latest sale price of the theater at $1.35 million.
According to the Cinema Treasures website, the building now housing the theater was built in 1905 as a bowling alley and changed to a 1,600-seat movie theater in 1922.
Two years later it was moved closer to the ocean and connected to the boardwalk, was divided into two in 1970 and four in 1989, according to Cinema Treasures.
The Frank Theaters chain operated it from 1989, closing it for the winter each season, and the Ocean City Tabernacle purchased it in 2012 before selling it in 2019.
Town Square Entertainment made news a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, defying Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive orders that ordered so many businesses, including movie theaters, to be closed in March 2020.
The company reopened the Tilton Square Theatre in June of that year, taking pains to limit capacity, enforce social distancing and sanitizing the theater after showings, but officials forced them to shut down after a week.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff