Abandoned Showcase Cinemas' Construction Is Not Market Basket

For nearly 15 years, Showcase Cinemas on Fall River Avenue in Seekonk has been shut down and standing empty.

The boarded-up windows and weed-covered parking lot have become a common sight for those driving by, but things are starting to change.

With the news this week that Market Basket had bought a Showcase Cinemas property in Seekonk, many people thought it was this empty theater that was purchased and then assumed the construction was for the supermarket.

But that is not what is happening at the former theater site. Construction underway on Fall River Avenue has nothing to do with food.

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In October 2018, Charles Tapalian, a developer who used to own adult entertainment clubs in Providence, bought the former theater site for $3.7 million.

Since then, he had a fish farm concept for the property, a cannabis processing plant proposal that the city said the site was not zoned for and a massive affordable apartment complex with 240 units.

It is the last project that was approved by Seekonk's Zoning Board of Appeals in the fall of 2022. Now, construction of the affordable housing is underway.

The new housing complex will take up the back 17 acres of Tapalian's massive property and features seven different buildings of apartments. Sixty of the 240 units will be affordable housing, a number that allows the project to qualify under the state 40B law, enabling affordable housing to overrule local zoning.

Residents were not thrilled with the approval of the 240-unit complex, so construction starting is probably not great news for locals.

The front of the theater property is not expected to be part of the housing and the idea for its future remains unknown.