Blockbuster's Abandoned Complexes

By Captain KRB (Sierra)

Hey Everybody

So, last episode we talked about an obscure proto-Transformer toy made in Finland in the 1980s in very limited number. Since this time, Transformers, as a franchise, is one which has valiantly fought its way through the miasma of decades and emerged, relatively intact, in our modern era. Ya know who hasn’t? Blockbuster Video. What was once a universal national cultural touchstone is now not so universal, and many of the company’s lesser known endeavors throughout its lifespan have, in the present day, been entirely forgotten. Case in point, did you know that for a brief period in the mid-90s, you could visit and enjoy an adult- only Blockbuster party building? Well, you’re gonna.

Now, to understand what I’m about to tell you about, we of course need to know a tiny bit about what exactly Blockbuster was. I’ve actually, weirdly, done a video on this whole thing, so check that out if you’re particularly curious, but for everybody else here’s the extremely abridged version.

1985: a Texas entrepreneur named David Cook, fresh off selling software infrastructure during the 1980 Texas Oil Boom,[1] starts a video store in Dallas.[2] Blockbuster Video takes off basically on day one thanks to their implementation of such novel practices as ‘letting you bring the tape to the counter’ and ‘not having the tape cost $150.’ Cook starts to franchise, franchise gets bought out by frightening 80s businessman and garbage truck czar Wayne Huizenga in 1987 and rapidly begins to explode in both scale and popularity.[2] In the early 90s the company hits its 20th-century peak with thousands of stores in multiple countries, a sprawling video library and a recent acquirement by media megaconglomorate Viacom in 1994.[1] And it’s during this halcyon period that our story takes place. Sure, there are tribulations, big ones, to come in the proceeding years, but for now, Blockbuster is flush with money, globally recognized, and backed by the guys who own MTV. So what does one get for the company that briefly has everything? Apparently, an in-door amusement park complex. A big one.

Word first began to circulate in mid-1994; information was, of course, tight, but it was rumored that Blockbuster was planning a highly experimental “entertainment center” concept to be trialed in approximately 4 cities across the nation, the only known at the time being Indianapolis, Indiana.[3] By November, plans had solidified and became a public matter: Blockbuster Entertainment, as it was now called under Viacom, would be building two “indoor entertainment complexes," downsized from the original 4, in two mid-sized American cities, with an Albuquerque, New Mexico location being revealed to complete the duo under the admittedly really fun name Blockbuster Block Party.[4] The concept had first been fielded by Bill Burns and Fred Books, former Walt Disney Company thralls and present operators of Blockbuster’s Entertainment Center Division, who proposed the plan based on an understanding that while theme parks couldn’t survive off modestly-sized cities like Albuquerque and Indianapolis, a smaller complex could fit the niche perfectly. Each site would be developed by theme park veterans ITEC Entertainment and cost $5-8 million; they’d be aimed at the supposedly elusive 18-45-year-old market, and feature an extensive collection of sensory experiences that customers could, in theory return to experience again and again.[5]

Now, don’t let words like “entertainment center” fool you; this was a Showbiz Pizza. Indoor amusement park with food, arcades, video experiences, little plastic cards that you could put money on, the only thing missing was the Rockafire Explosion. But, remarkably unique for the era, and unlike mixed-age establishments like Dave & Busters, it was almost entirely adult-oriented; kids needed adult supervision and special permissions to even enter the premises. If the residents of Albuquerque had ever dreamt of boozing it up in a Chuck E Cheese ballpit, now was their chance. The New Mexico location was to be the first opened, and construction continued throughout the end of the year as the very first Block Party complex, fittingly occupying an entire city block, prepared for opening day. And on December 19th of 1994, this day arrived.[5]

Upon entering a Block Party building, guests were welcomed by a atmospherically lit, stylized street scene, which served as a hub location for the facility’s many attractions as city sounds and light effects would play on a loop to drive up the effect. Visitors would acclimate themselves to the environment at Infomania, an information desk to their immediate right, where they could receive a “Fun Card” loadable with cash to be spent throughout the building. Ahead and to the left, guests could enter the Power Grid, a multi-level playground dark area with vibrant lighting and effects, complete with a suitably big ass ball pit. Across the street from the Power Grid was Flippers, a sprawling arcade room themed after a giant pinball machine with all manner of arcade cabinets and electromechanical games.[6] Adjacent to Flippers was a unique and often headlining attraction called Virtua Alley, an early-ish virtual reality station which featured at least one game where customers could kill “hulking robots and lizard-like creatures."[7] Back out on the street and to the right of the Power Grid was Soup’er Bloopers (uh huh), a bizarre sports-themed finger-food restaurant which could serve alcohol, and towards the end of the street were two more decidedly low-key entertainment rooms.[6] The Tube was a smaller, rentable party room filled with tables and TVs,[4] and the Go Motion Pictures theatre was the quintessential theme park 4-D experience, with motion-controlled seats synced up to a number of action-packed short films, the most popular of which was known simply as “Dino Island,” all available for just $2.95 on your Fun Card. Finally, on their way out, guests could stop by Alarm ‘n Stuff, the official gift shop which sold Block Party paraphernalia, and with that their Blockbuster Block Party adventure had concluded for the day.[6] All experiences were paid for through funds placed on the Fun Card, and on opening week, things seemed to be looking up. I’ll be fully honest: if it wasn’t for the fact that I was yet to exist for close to a decade when it opened, I’d have taken a trip down to one of these things myself. After all, as one Albuquerque 18-year-old put it to an LA Times reporter, “It’s something to do … here in Albuquerque, if you’re 18, there isn’t much you can do.”[7] And so it continued.

Or, did it? After the subsequent opening of the Indianapolis location, and not even a year into the operation of the two complexes, there began, to be heard, rumblings that they were not long for the world of entertainment. And these rumblings seemed to emanate from our good friends at Viacom, who, by the first quarter of 1995, had started to take issue with Blockbuster’s side hustles.[8] You see, Block Party wasn’t the only weird thing Blockbuster had its hands in at this point in time. Prior to acquisition, the company under Huizenga was essentially throwing shit at the wall with quite minimal stickage; as of Spring ’95, the company owned Spelling Entertainment, Republic Pictures, a chain of music stores, a merchandising branch, a selection of video games, a PC repair division and a billion-dollar plan for an entire theme park in Florida.[9] And to Viacom, this was an itemized list of everything they needed to ax under their new management, with Block Party stamped in bold red at the bottom of the page. It wasn’t so much that Block Party was wasting money, or failing to return on its investment – hell, the things hadn’t been running for more than a handful of months – it was that the existence of the complexes embodied something Viacom simply did not envision as part of their stripped-back, low-maintenance Blockbuster of the future.

And so, just as abruptly as it had been announced, Blockbuster Block Party would begin to detach itself from Blockbuster in the middle of 1995. What exactly happens at this point is unclear, and not well documented; reports from the time claim Block Party was sold to contemporary entertainment complex company Discovery Zone,[8] but at the time Blockbuster owned a majority share in the company, so it’s not easy to determine what the intended fate of the parks truly was. What is clear is that Blockbuster was absolved of all direct involvement; by July of 1996 and August of 1997, the Indianapolis and Albuquerque locations respectively were still advertising[10] and hiring[11] respectively, but absent the Blockbuster name, going simply by “Block Party.” The advertising paper trail slowly deteriorates at this point, and the two locations likely languished in relative obscurity, left to slowly fade away by their parent companies until, in 1999, the Albuquerque location officially closed its hallowed doors.[12] Discovery Zone, which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1997, had vowed to close a number of so-called ‘underperforming fun centers’ to regain its solvency, and in the apparent Limbo State the Block Party centers had been left in, the location was prime to be cut. Local fun center business operators were, reportedly, confused by the move; one Albuquerque arcade owner remarked: “[It] was a very nice facility. I don’t know why it didn’t succeed.”[12] In 2002, the Indianapolis location was shuttered with even less fanfare, with no explanation being given by the group which now owned the establishment.[13] And with this, Blockbuster Block Party, tossed and beaten by the winds and waves of corporate nonsense for close to a decade, finally ceased to exist.

But their buildings did not. The fates of the two buildings, abandoned shrines to a forgotten place and time, diverge at this point. Despite being the first to close, the Albuquerque location was looked after for some time; in late 2005 a very similar establishment called IT’Z opened within the original Block Party building,[14] which ran until 2016, when a land ownership dispute put the business underground.[15] It languished again in disuse for 6 more years until 2022, when the vibrant purples and oranges were overwritten with a dull gray and the building was inhabited by an abstractly pizza-related business called Peter Defries Corporation, the form it remains in to this day.[16] The Indianapolis location was not so lucky. After its shutdown in 2002, the building was, for all intents and purposes, left to rot for a decade in an empty lakeshore parking lot. Amazingly, this strange period of disrepair was coincidentally captured, in striking detail, by an Indiana DDR Community Forum called IndyDDR, who toured the location in the midst of its closure.[17] I’ll link these surreal photos below. Finally, in 2012, the site was bulldozed to make room for a $25 million housing development, which was built upon the ruins and made open to the public in 2013.[18] If one amongst you happens to live in the lakeside building of Indianapolis 82 Flats apartment development, rejoice, for you are living atop the ruins of one of Blockbuster’s most unusual legacies.

Blockbuster itself went on to experience a late 90s lull, an unexpected second peak in 2004 under a man named John Antiocco before dying a slow and painful death to the ten million cuts of the Information Age. But let history not forget these things; strange and unexpected but otherwise very charming monuments, temples dedicated to the environment they were born from which might have otherwise lived fruitful lives if not left for dead by forces too large for them to contend with. In the world beyond this, where things are which are no longer, I like to imagine that somebody’s having a pretty good time in the ball pit. Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching.