The Krikorian Went Dark in January. Buena Park Downtown Didn't.

Drive past the mall I grew up going to on La Palma Avenue these days, and the first thing you notice is the marquee. It's blank. No showtimes, no coming attractions, just a dark rectangle where the Krikorian Metroplex 18 sign used to tell you what was playing at 7:15. Next to it, heavy equipment has been working through what used to be the Sears parking lot since early this year. Put those two things next to each other, and it's easy to read the whole property as one long closing sale.

That read is wrong, or at least incomplete. The theater and the demolition are two separate stories that happen to share a parking lot, and untangling them tells you more about how this corner of Buena Park actually works than either story does on its own.

Two Closures, Two Very Different Endings

The Krikorian Metroplex 18 closed its doors in January 2026, after 22 years as the anchor of the mall's entertainment side since it opened in May 2003. That closure had nothing to do with the housing project next door. Krikorian Premiere Theatres, the operator, was leaving the business entirely. This was the company's last location anywhere.

What's easy to miss is what happened next. In July 2026, Regency Theatres took over the space and announced it will reopen as the Regency Buena Park Downtown 18 & REX, once repairs are finished. No reopening date has been set yet. But the building itself isn't going anywhere. It's getting a new operator, not a wrecking ball.

Compare that to what's happening a few hundred feet away. The former Sears building, vacant since the chain closed that store in 2020, started coming down in March 2026. That demolition is step one of The Village at Buena Park, a 1,302-unit apartment and townhome project from Merlone Geier Partners that will eventually include a public park, courtyards, and ground-floor amenities on the old Sears footprint. That building is not reopening as anything. It's making room for housing.

So the honest version of what's happening at Buena Park Downtown right now is this: one anchor is being replaced with residential construction, and another anchor is being handed to a new operator who plans to keep running it as a movie theater. The dark marquee and the demolition equipment are next to each other by coincidence of geography, not because they're the same project.

What Took Three Years to Show Up

Here's the part that's genuinely useful if you live nearby and want to know what to expect next. The City Council approved The Village at Buena Park unanimously back on June 27, 2023. For roughly two and a half years after that vote, nothing visible changed on the ground. The theater kept running. The parking lot stayed a parking lot. Then, within a few months of each other in early 2026, the theater closed, and demolition began.

That gap between a project getting approved and a project becoming visible is worth remembering, because it cuts both ways. It means the redevelopment side of this story will likely move more slowly than headlines suggest, in phases rather than all at once. It also means the theater's return under Regency could take a while to actually show up as a marquee lighting back up, even though the operator has already been announced.

A few dates worth keeping straight if you're trying to track this:

• The Krikorian Metroplex 18 closed in late January 2026, after 22 years at the mall.
• Regency Theatres announced it was taking over the space in mid-July 2026, planning to rename it Regency Buena Park Downtown 18 & REX. It will be Regency's 17th location, nearly all of which are in California.
• Repairs are underway with no reopening date confirmed yet.
• If you want a working movie theater in the meantime, Regency opened a separate location nearby, the Regency Buena Park 8 & 4DX at The Source, in May 2026, giving moviegoers an option a few months after the Krikorian went dark.

The Farmers Market Nobody's Replaced Yet

One piece of this doesn't have a tidy update, and it's the one most likely to change your weekend. The Buena Park Downtown Farmers Market operated as a year-round certified open-air market on the Sears parking lot at La Palma and Stanton Avenues for years. When demolition started on that lot, the market lost its space. As of the most recent reporting available, no replacement site has been confirmed.

If you built a Saturday routine around that market, it's worth checking the current status before you plan around it showing up somewhere nearby. This is the one thread in the whole redevelopment that hasn't been resolved with an announcement, a new address, or even a timeline. Everything else on this list has a name attached to what comes next. The farmers market currently doesn't.

What's Actually Still Open Right Now

It's easy to let a demolition site and a dark theater marquee make the whole property feel like it's winding down. It isn't. Walmart, DSW, Ross Dress for Less, TJ Maxx, and Burlington have anchored Buena Park Downtown for years, and all of them remain open and operating through construction. None of that retail footprint is part of what's being demolished or repurposed. The project on the old Sears site is additive to the mall, built alongside the parts that are staying, not a replacement for the whole thing.

There's some history worth sitting with here too. The mall opened in 1961 as one of the first enclosed shopping centers in Orange County, and by 2007 it ranked as the 20th largest mall in the county by square footage. It sits one block from the main entrance to Knott's Berry Farm, which is part of why the site has always drawn a mix of daily errands and evening plans in one trip. That mix isn't disappearing. It's just going to look different for a while as the construction phases work through.

What This Actually Means If You're Nearby

If you've been avoiding the mall because it looks like it's closing down, that's not quite the right read. The marquee going dark was a business closure, not a demolition notice, and the operator taking its place has already been named even if the reopening date hasn't. The demolition you're seeing is confined to the old Sears footprint and is step one of a multi-year housing project, not a sign the retail side is going anywhere. The one open question that actually affects a weekly routine is the farmers market, and that's worth checking on directly rather than assuming it'll pop back up nearby.

None of this is a reason to avoid La Palma and Stanton right now. Walmart, DSW, Ross, TJ Maxx, and Burlington are all open. The Source has a working theater a short drive away if you want a movie tonight. And the corner that's actually under construction is being rebuilt into something, not simply cleared out.

If you're curious about how changes like this tend to ripple through home values, rental demand, or what it's like living near a corridor that's actively rebuilding itself, that's the kind of question Gina Oddo fields regularly across Orange County. No pressure, just a conversation grounded in what's actually happening on the ground here, not just what the headlines make it look like.