Former Cary movie theater to serve suspended Wake County students

A theater that once entertained moviegoers when Cary was a small town is now slated to educate Wake County middle school students with special needs.

Last week, the Wake County Board of Commissioners approved the school board’s purchase of the former South Hills Twin movie theater on Buck Jones Road across from South Hills shopping center. School administrators want to relocate the district’s Transitions Program to the old theater, where it would serve 50 middle school students with disabilities who’ve received long-term suspensions of more than 10 days.

“This is a population that needs a good strong location to support their educational needs,” Betty Parker, the district’s senior director of real estate services, told commissioners last month.

The acquisition of the theater also reflects how Wake County has changed since the South Hills Twin opened in 1973.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Wake County had 254,386 people in 1973. Cary reported having 12,046 residents in 1970.

The South Hills Twin was Cary’s first twin theater with two screens able to show different films, according to the Cinema Treasures website.

At that time in the 1970s, X-rated films were being shown in mainstream cinemas. But the South Hills Twin’s original owners touted in a 1972 Raleigh Times article that they would “have the cleanest movies in town,” with every film approved by the National Council of Churches.

The theater opened in July 1973 by showing the religious musical “Godspell.”

The South Hills Twin eventually became a discount theater showing second-run films. It closed in March 1994.

Over the past 20 years, the building has housed a fitness gym, a church and a preschool.

One of the reasons the school system wanted the old theater, Parker told commissioners, is that it’s close to what is now the county’s population center. The Census Bureau estimates that Wake County had 1 million people in 2015, with 155,227 people in Cary in 2014.

The students in the Transitions Program now take school buses to reach the DuBois Center in Wake Forest. Parker said these students, who have demonstrated severe behavioral and social problems, would benefit from a shorter bus ride.

“Most of these kids are on a bus for a long time and that’s not very conducive to their learning,” Parker said.

This wouldn’t be the first time that the school system has bought or leased buildings such as theaters, supermarkets and industrial plants and converted them for use as schools.

In 2012, the school board purchased the former Garner Towne Square 10 theater. After renovating the theater’s interior, the building reopened in January 2014 to house freshmen from the nearby and overcrowded Garner High School.

This time, the school system is paying $1.4 million to acquire the South Hills Twin property. School administrators estimate it could cost an additional $1.5 million to retrofit the 13,421-square-foot building and make improvements to the parking lot.

The school system hasn’t yet identified where it will find the money to retrofit the theater, so no date has been set when the Transitions program will be relocated. The district’s lease for the DuBois Center site expires in 2017.

In the meantime, commissioners have embraced the reuse of the former theater.

“I think it’s very creative, and obviously it’s a direction the public school system is interested in going and us as well,” said Sig Hutchinson, vice chairman of the Board of Commissioners.

Database editor David Raynor contributed.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Former Cary movie theater to serve suspended Wake County students."