Study: Movie theater visits decreased 10% in 2025
Monday, March 9, 2026
This is a summary
"A Barnes & Noble in Kendall could be demolished to build one of the largest Rooms To Go furniture stores in the nation. The Seffner-based furniture company filed a pre-application with Miami-Dade County officials for the 3.8-acre site at 12405 S.W. 88th Street.
It currently has a 55,824-square-foot retail building that was constructed in 1996. Half of the building is occupied by a Barnes & Noble bookstore and the other half previously had a Michaels store."
Read the original on South Florida Business Journal
Rooms To Go could replace Barnes & Noble with mega store | South Florida Business Journal
Image credit to Albero Furniture Bratislava on Unsplash
U.S. movie theater visits fell by at least 10% year-over-year in 2025 when comparing second and third quarter data from 2024 with the same periods in 2025, according to location intelligence provider Kalibrate. Major cinema chains experienced steeper declines with average visit volumes down approximately 15%, including Regal Cinemas declining 12.2% and Century Theatres dropping 20.3%, while independent theaters showed greater resilience with only an 8.6% decrease. Households earning over $100,000 annually showed signs of pulling back more than other income groups, notable since moviegoing has historically skewed toward those with more disposable income. Highly urbanized areas experienced the largest year-over-year declines with visits down 18%, while rural and exurban areas saw a much smaller decline of just 5%, and several Western states including Idaho, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming posted increases of more than 5%.
Major retail brands have closed stores across Middle Eastern shopping hubs including Dubai as escalating regional conflict disrupts business operations and travel, with many locations operating with skeleton staff or shuttered entirely. Chalhoub Group, operating 900 stores for brands including Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Sephora, closed all Bahrain locations while making staff attendance voluntary in UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan markets. Luxury conglomerate Kering temporarily closed stores in UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, while Amazon shuttered Abu Dhabi fulfillment operations and suspended regional deliveries. Apple's Dubai stores remained closed, H&M shut Bahrain and Israel locations, and consumer goods group Reckitt closed its Bahrain manufacturing site while instructing all Middle East employees to work from home. Luxury stocks LVMH, Hermès, and Richemont declined 4% to 6.5% as investors assessed the impact on a region that represented luxury's strongest growth market in recent years, accounting for 5% to 10% of global luxury spending.
The Senate advanced the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with an 84-6 bipartisan vote, combining affordability and housing production measures with a Trump administration proposal to ban institutional investment in single-family homes. The bill defines institutional investors as companies owning 350 or more homes and includes exemptions for homes built to rent, with the White House indicating President Trump would sign it if passed as written. Key provisions include simplifying National Environmental Protection Act review processes to reduce construction delays, increasing Federal Housing Administration multifamily loan limits, changing manufactured housing definitions to spur construction, and supporting housing development in opportunity zones and Community Development Block Grant jurisdictions. The legislation, authored by Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, still requires a final Senate vote and must be reconciled with the House bill before reaching the president's desk.