Regal soon to control East Cooper movies

The nation's largest movie theater chain is set to corner the East Cooper market and add to its near-lock on the rest of the region.

Charlotte-based Consolidated Theatres, owner of the Palmetto Grande 16-screen megaplex at Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, is dropping the curtain and selling itself to industry kingpin Regal Entertainment Group for $210 million in cash.

The deal will give Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal control of all 28 silver screens in the East Cooper market, rarely a good situation for consumers. If history is any guide, the Palmetto Grande moniker will likely be changed once Regal integrates it into its national network of movie houses later this year.

Regal is already the undisputed heavyweight of the region's movie exhibition business, with three megaplexes and 46 screens in North Charleston, Summerville and Mount Pleasant. Its last local acquisition was its 2005 purchase of the Charlotte-based owner of the former Movies at Mount Pleasant and Movies at Azalea Square.

Opened in 1999, the retro-themed and immensely popular Palmetto Grande was one of the first megaplexes built in the Charleston region and to feature such now-common film-going amenities as stadium seating, wall-to-wall screens and digital sound. It was a concept pioneered by Consolidated and its top executive, industry veteran Herman Stone, who is said to be retiring.

"This is the best one I've ever built," Stone told The Post and Courier the day Palmetto Grande made its debut.

Privately held Consolidated operates 400 screens at 28 locations in the Carolinas, Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee and Virginia. Elsewhere in the Palmetto State, the chain has theaters in Columbia, Greenville, Lexington, Rock Hill and Spartanburg.

Regal, which describes itself as the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world, operates 6,355 screens in 526 locations in 39 states under the names Regal Cinemas, United Artists Theatres and Edwards.

Clean play

A shuttered North Charleston manufacturing plant is set to get a new life as a warehouse and a work site for the disabled, if all goes according to plan.

The Ginn Co. of Celebration, Fla., is proposing to buy the 13-acre, 170,000-square-foot former Evans Rule property on Eagle Drive from Evans owner L.S. Starrett Co. for undisclosed terms.

Ginn then plans to transfer the property to Charleston County. But first the real estate development firm will test for and clean up any soil and groundwater contamination on the land, which is considered a "brownfields" site, under a voluntary agreement with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

DHEC said it is likely the property was polluted by "various industrial processes used during the plant operation."

The county is proposing to use the building as a disaster-preparedness storage site and for the Hope Center, where DHEC said disabled citizens will perform such jobs as baking, woodworking, dry-good sorting and third-party logistics.

In its previous life, the plant boasted several hundred skilled workers who turned out tape measures, hacksaws and other hand tools for more than three decades as employees of Evans Rule, a division of Athol, Mass.-based L.S. Starrett. The parent company announced in 2005 that it was shifting what remained of its local manufacturing business to Latin America.

The public can weigh in on Ginn's proposed cleanup plan until Jan. 24. The toll-free number for more information is 866-576-3432.

Reach John McDermott at 937-5572 or jmcdermott@ postandcourier.com.