A plan to convert Newburgh’s Showtime Cinemas into a self-storage facility is currently before the Town of Newburgh Planning Board.

The property at 1420 Route 300 is owned by Sam Newburgh LLC and represented by Darren Doce of Doce Associates

“As you’re aware, this is the existing cinema site. The proposal is to convert that to an indoor self storage facility. The total square footage is at least 5000 square feet on three floors,” Doce told the planning board. “There will be no changes to the building envelope, all the work will be done within the building.”

The 38,500 square foot building would be converted into several floors with climate controlled self-storage units, 708 units in total, according to Doce. Additional elevators to help with movement of items into storage on the varying floors were proposed to be installed on each end of the building. Items for storage can be loaded and unloaded through the front of the building or in the back. There is no planned demolition for the site and the two access points from Union Avenue and Route 52 are set to remain. No additional outdoor storage is being proposed.

Showtime Cinemas is currently owned by Christopher Bistor. The movie theater first opened in November of 2003 and Bistor joined the theater staff that same year. Bistor later acquired the business and officially had ownership of it in January 2020. Several months later, Showtime Cinemas closed in March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic and remained closed till June 2021 before finally reopening.

Bistor said he has been working to locate a new possible location for the business. Bistor said he would like to remain in Newburgh if possible.

Closure of Showtime would leave the Downing Film Center, at the Newburgh Waterfront, as the only operating movie theatre in Eastern Orange County.Destinta Theaters, located on Route 94 in New Windsor, has been closed since late 2019.

Cinema Pizza, which operated next to Destinta, was reported to have closed recently due to the loss of customer traffic because of the theater’s closure and difficult rent negotiations.