Odyssey Entertainment’s Lafayette Square 7 movie theater in Marietta will close Feb. 23, the company announced Thursday. (Photo by James Dobbs)

By Evan Bevins

Staff Reporter

The show won’t go on much longer at Marietta’s only movie theater.

Minnesota-based Odyssey Entertainment announced Thursday that their Lafayette Square 7 Theatre in Marietta will close at the end of the day on Feb. 23.

“The lease for the property has matured, and negotiations between Odyssey and the building’s landlord have failed to produce a new lease,” a press release from the company said.

The building is owned by New York-based Lafayette Plaza LLC. A call to a management company based at that address seeking comment about the future of the building was not returned Thursday afternoon.

Marietta Mayor Josh Schlicher said the closure is “definitely going to leave a void.”

Documents submitted to the city indicate the building is to be renovated and leased for a retail operation, he said. The nature of the potential new tenant could not be confirmed Thursday afternoon.

A spokesman for Harbor Freight, a low-price retailer of tools and other equipment, said the company is actively looking to open a location in Marietta but a site has not been finalized.

The release from Odyssey noted the COVID-19 pandemic hit movie theaters particularly hard, with shutdowns and restrictions, patrons being slow to return and studios delaying major releases.

“Marietta has been a great community to do business in,” said Bryan Sieve, president of Odyssey Theatres. “We had hoped business levels in Marietta would have returned to pre-pandemic levels but they simply have not.”

In the release, the company thanked local patrons for their support over the 11 years Odyssey has owned the theater and encouraged people to use passes or gift cards through the closing date.

Among those patrons is Marietta resident Seth Offenberger, a co-host of the locally produced “Ka-Pow: The Pop-Cultured Podcast,” which discusses movies and other forms of entertainment.

“It’s terrible to think that we will not have a movie theater in this town,” he said. “I’ve always thought our theaters were (some) of the best-looking out there.”

Offenberger said he hasn’t seen a big crowd at the theater since he watched “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019. He noted the increase in streaming options may also be keeping people home, but said that isn’t the same as going to see a new movie on the big screen.

“There’s always a chance I’m going to see something I’ve never seen before and it becomes one of my favorite movies of all time,” he said.

Odyssey owns or operates eight theaters under the Odyssey and CineMagic banners in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and Ohio.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.