What was the Sonora Village theater?
By the mid-1990s, north Scottsdale had grown past its movie theaters. United Artists answered on May 10, 1996, with a ten-screen multiplex at Sonora Village, the shopping center on Hayden Road just south of Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, in the middle of the Airpark’s new offices and the neighborhoods around them.
It went through three companies in twenty-eight years. It was a UA, and then a Regal, until 2010. It was a Studio Movie Grill from 2011, serving dinner at the seats, until the pandemic closed it in March 2020. And it was Touchstar’s Sonora Village Luxury Cinemas from late 2021 until early 2024.
The building didn’t stay a theater. The city approved turning it into a Floor & Decor, which had opened by early 2026.
Three runs on Hayden Road
UA and Regal, 1996–2010. Cinema Treasures has the grand-opening ad for the UA Sonora Village 10. Regal absorbed United Artists in 2002, and the theater kept running until early 2010; a commenter gives February 7, 2010, and blames a newer stadium-seating theater nearby.
Studio Movie Grill, 2011–2020. The Texas chain reopened it on November 11, 2011, with nine screens and full meals served at the seats. It closed on March 16, 2020, as theaters shut down for the pandemic. When Studio Movie Grill filed for Chapter 11 that October, ABC15 reported that the Scottsdale location wouldn’t come back.
Touchstar, 2021–2024. Touchstar Cinemas took over in July 2021 and reopened that December as Sonora Village Luxury Cinemas. It lasted a little over two years, closing around February 2024, by BigScreen’s and Cinema Treasures’ records.
Floor & Decor. The city’s Development Review Board took up case 17-DR-2023 in December 2023: a plan to renovate and expand the theater building on its 6.13-acre lot as a Floor & Decor store, which staff recommended for approval. AZ Big Media reported the store open in February 2026.
The sources, and the disagreements
Main sources: Cinema Treasures and its comments; ABC15 on the 2020 closing; BigScreen on Touchstar; the City of Scottsdale’s 2023 design-review report; and AZ Big Media.
What’s unsettled:
- The 2010 closing date. A commenter’s February 7, 2010; we haven’t seen a news report.
- Studio Movie Grill’s opening. November 2011 by Cinema Treasures; one commenter says 2012.
- Touchstar’s end. Early February 2024 by Cinema Treasures, January by BigScreen.
- Demolished or converted. A Joan Fudala column recorded the theater as razed in 2024. The city’s case describes a renovation and expansion of the existing building, so we call it converted.
Why it matters
The Sonora Village theater went through the main changes in American moviegoing over three decades: the 1990s multiplex, the stadium-seating megaplex that made it old in ten years, the dinner theater, the pandemic and a final try at luxury seating. Like the Camelview 5, its site went to retail.