Scottsdale 6 drive-in being demolished

• The Scottsdale 6 drive-in is being demolished
• After demolition%2C land owners will start looking to lease the property for commercial use
• Glendale 9 is the last remaining drive-in movie theater in Arizona

Before there was Tempe Town Lake, Tempe Marketplace or even Loop 202 in the East Valley, there was the Scottsdale 6 drive-in movie theater.

For more than 30 years, six mammoth movie screens at McClintock Drive and McKellips Road have looked on as the land around them changed.

The theater closed in 2011, and this month those dinosaurs were ripped from the ground to make way for new development.

The 29-acre commercial property is on the Salt River Reservation, with Tempe to the south and Scottsdale to the north.

Claire Miller, president of Solanna Group LLC, said landowners are discussing the best-use plan for development of the property.

Miller said Solanna, the firm developing the property under a commercial master lease, is operated by her family, which owns about 3 acres of the movie-theater property and nearly 90 surrounding acres. A second reservation family owns the rest of the property, she said.

Ownership traces to 1887 law

The ownership of the land stems from the Dawes Act of 1887, or the General Allotment Act, adopted by Congress to survey Native American land and divide it into allotments. It created almost 1,000 allotments in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community for individuals and families.

Miller said the movie-theater land and that surrounding it has been passed down through generations.

"The lease contract for Scottsdale Six was signed in the 1970s. Since then, the owners were the parents and grandparents of current owners," Miller said.

Miller said the theater owner, California-based Syufy Enterprises, parent company to West Wind Drive-Ins, had left the property in bad shape, with a number of code violations, and in 2011, the parties were unable to reach an agreement on a new lease.

But Tony Maniscalco, a spokesman for Syufy Enterprises, contends the company never violated codes and wasn't presented a lease.

Demolition is expected to finish this week. Next, owners will start looking to lease the property. Miller said that after a commercial lease is in place and development projects are identified, construction can begin. This could take up to three years, she added.

"With ASU and Tempe Marketplace nearby, we understand the potential for this site," she said.

Glendale 9 lone survivor

There are now 603 drive-in movie-theaters screens at 356 sites in the United States, down about 11 percent since 1999, according to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association.

Following a national trend, Arizona has lost almost 50 drive-ins in the past half-century.

Maniscalco said the Glendale 9, near 59th Avenue and Bethany Home Road and also owned by West Wind, is bucking this trend.

The company has seven drive-ins and 36 screens in three states. He said it recently upgraded to digital projectors and improved audio equipment and screens.

Glendale 9 is the last theater of its type in Arizona, and Maniscalco said business has gone up 43 percent in the past six years.

"It's grown at a record pace, and we've been very happy," he said. "With general admission at about $7, people see it as a great deal and keep coming back."

The Apache Drive-In, in Globe, closed last year.