Cinephiles circle as four iconic Sydney theatres hit the market

Cinemas at Avalon, Collaroy, Warriewood and Katoomba, all tied to United Cinemas founder Roy Mustaca and on the market via a mortgagee sale and receivers, are attracting strong interest from both cinema operators and developers.

Four iconic Sydney picture palaces are up for grabs, and cinema operators are paying attention.

The cinemas at Avalon, Collaroy and Warriewood on the Northern Beaches, and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, are all tied to United Cinemas founder Roy Mustaca.

And they’ve all drawn solid and diverse early interest since hitting the market, stirring local fears they could fall to developers — though selling agents at JLL say buyers from the cinema fraternity are among those enquiring.

The cinemas at Avalon and Collaroy are being sold by MCH Agency Services as mortgagee in possession. Those at Warriewood and Katoomba are being sold by the receivers and managers of Planet Warriewood, another Mustaca company that went into receivership in May.

JLL is running expressions of interest campaigns for all four, closing 3 December unless sold prior.

Of them all, the bright turquoise Art Deco cinema at Collaroy, opposite the beach, is the oldest and certainly the brightest.

Opened in 1938 as the Collaroy De-Luxe Theatre, it has passed through various owners and names. Locals recall it being packed in school holidays in decades gone by, with kids handed a free lollipop at the end of each film.

But audiences had thinned in recent years, and this year the curtains fell, with its last film screening in August.

The United Cinemas in Collaroy is for sale, identified from the outside in its iconic aqua blue building facade. Picture: realcommercial.com.au

The 594sqm corner site at 1097 Pittwater Road, Collaroy holds two cinemas with around 665 seats, and the façade and interiors are locally heritage listed  — which could deter some developers.

Further up the beaches, Avalon’s cinema opened in 1955, when the village was a laidback holiday resort, and films had been shown in a tent on the sand.

Its mid-century modernism — the bold colours, rippled ceiling and curtains with Indigenous-styled motifs — set it apart from traditional picture palaces at the time.

Today it’s a two-screen Moderne complex at 33-41 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach, just 250m from the sand on a 1,790sqm freehold site that also includes a retail arcade and shops, with tenants including United Cinemas and F45.

Happily for potential buyers, the leases carry landlord demolition clauses, and the site isn’t heritage listed.

Avalon Beach’s boutique cinema is another Mustaca puzzle piece. Picture: realcommercial.com.au

Both Avalon and Collaroy have E1 zoning, opening the door to uses including shop-top housing, medical centres, childcare and recreation facilities (STCA).

At Warriewood, the star-ceilinged complex Mustaca built in the 1990s at 4 Vuka Place, Warriewood is also for sale, with Hoyts waiting in the wings.

It’s offered either with vacant possession or with a heads of agreement for Hoyts to take a 10-year lease plus two five-year options. The seven-screen complex sits on 8,414sqm of SP4-zoned land, and a drive-through restaurant has DA approval to September 2027.

In Katoomba, many driving through the Blue Mountains would have clocked the imposing and boxy cinema called The Edge on the roadside. It opened in December 1995, drawing crowds with a Blue Mountains-shot IMAX-style documentary of the same name.

The four-screen, 712-seat complex at 225-237 Great Western Highway includes a 328-seat MAX auditorium and sits on 7,955sqm, with vacant retail tenancies offering leasing upside. R1 zoning also allows alternative uses (STCA).

Hoyts currently occupies this Warriewood nostalgic wonder. Picture: realcommercial.com.au

JLL agent Gordon Mcfadyen, who’s selling all four cinemas, says interest has been solid and diverse.

“They’re all great assets and they’ve all had a good, diverse range of interest from the market.”

He said that included enquiries from the cinema fraternity on the lookout for new locations — welcome news for locals.

“Everybody loves a small niche boutique type of offering that’s not so mainstream,” he said.

Whether they remain as picture palaces of course is still unclear.

Their loss would join a long list of vanished Sydney neighbourhood cinemas, from Kogarah’s Victory De-Luxe (opened in 1920, closed in 2003) and Hurstville’s Art Deco Savoy (opened in 1937, demolished in 1995) to Parramatta’s Spanish Mission-style Roxy, which stopped screening films in 2002, and Paddington’s Verona, which closed in 2024.

Roy Mustaca also took his business empire westward to Katoomba. Picture: realcommercial.com.au

United’s Opera Quays cinema beside the Opera House is also closed for now.

But there’s hope for film buffs.

Sydney still sustains the Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne, an Art Deco gem opened in 1935, the Ritz in Randwick, which opened in 1937, and the Golden Age Cinema in Surry Hills, which has operated since 2013 in Paramount’s former 1940 screening room.

And Roseville Cinemas, feared lost to developers when it listed this year, sold for around $8m to Five Star Cinemas’ owners, who plan to keep it running and have an established boutique cinema scene in its native Brisbane.