It's a combination of movie theaters being in the shitter as an industry and Bowtie's location/escalating land prices.

As others have said, pre-pandemic Criterion was a decent place for indie cinema. And before Bowtie opened Criterion, they were decent about devoting a couple screens to indie flicks. They were so good that they probably put the last nail in the coffin for other places like Westhampton that would show indie films. Bowtie and Criterion were the shit up until 2015 or so.

Anyway, Bowtie is sitting on a land goldmine now in Scott's Addition and it makes more sense to sell the land than to pay for renovations to what is now probably an overly large multiplex.

Bowtie does own another piece of property in the city. So if the movie industry holds up, I expect they will sell the current theater and move to the other property. Or perhaps sell both and take the massive cash profit and find a cheaper property.

But in the meantime, no one is going to invest in a new theater given the state of the industry and that they probably cannot defeat Bowtie if they opt to stay in the city. We had a multiplex so good it wiped out all the competition, and now that one remaining multiplex is contemplating its next move so we're all in limbo.