What was the Scottsdale 6?
By the late 1970s the drive-in was fading in most of America, but in the East Valley it got a new one. The Scottsdale 6 opened on February 9, 1977, at McKellips and Hayden roads, on about 29 acres leased from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community just south of the city line. It had six screens and room for 1,800 cars, with the sound played over the car radio instead of window speakers. Opening night was six double features at once: Carrie and Embryo, Young Frankenstein and Bananas, Freaky Friday and Peter Pan, and three more.
It lasted. The Round-Up on Thomas Road closed in 1980, and over the next three decades the Valley’s other drive-ins went one by one. The Scottsdale 6 stayed open year-round, run by the Syufy family’s drive-in business, under the West Wind name by the end.
It closed in late August 2011 when its lease ran out. That left Arizona with two drive-ins, in Glendale and Globe. The screens came down in 2014, and the land is still empty.
Six screens and a lease
The theater. The opening ad, posted on Cinema Treasures and drive-ins.com, lists all six screens. Cinema Treasures names Vincent G. Raney, a California theater architect, as the designer. Its operators were Syufy Enterprises, through its Century Theatres, and then West Wind Drive-Ins, the family’s drive-in and swap-meet company. Drive-ins.com doesn’t date the change.
The land. The East Valley Tribune reported in 2011 that the operators leased the 29 acres in 1976, for 25 years with a 10-year option. That’s about 35 years, which is close to how long the theater ran. When the term was up, the lease wasn’t renewed. Phoenix New Times reported both sides: West Wind said the Community’s plans for the land had pushed it out, and the Community said West Wind hadn’t filed its paperwork in time.
The last shows. The final bill, by the Tribune, was Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Our Idiot Brother and The Smurfs. Drive-ins.com gives the last night as August 27, 2011. Fans held a farewell gathering on the lot in September.
The site. It sat closed for three years. In May 2014 crews removed the screens, concession stand, ticket booths and asphalt, clearing the land for future commercial development, by the Phoenix Business Journal and azcentral as summarized on drive-ins.com. Cinema Treasures visitors in 2018 and 2022 described it as vacant. A soccer complex has been rumored but not reported.
The sources, and the gaps
Main sources: Cinema Treasures and its comments, drive-ins.com’s listing and news page, and two East Valley Tribune stories from 2011. Phoenix New Times on the lease dispute, which we’ve read only in a search excerpt.
What’s unsettled:
- Opening day. February 9 in the opening ad; the 2011 Tribune says February 7.
- The last night. August 27 or 28, 2011.
- Who opened it. Syufy and West Wind are both listed as owners without dates, so we don’t know whether a Syufy company ran it from the first night.
- The architect. Raney rests on Cinema Treasures alone.
- A swap meet. Several West Wind drive-ins doubled as swap meets, but we found no evidence this one did.
- “Last drive-in.” No source says it in so many words, but after 2011 the only drive-ins left in Arizona were in Glendale and Globe, so it was the East Valley’s last.
Where the answers are. The Arizona Republic’s theater ads for 1977 and 2011, the Community’s lease records, and Syufy’s corporate history.
Why it matters
The Scottsdale 6 was the last of the drive-ins that once ringed the Valley. It was also, like Beeline Dragway before it, a business on land leased from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and it ended the way leases do: when the term ran out, the land went back to its owners and their plans.