Who built the Tampa Theatre?
Paramount Studios heavily financed the Tampa Theatre’s construction in collaboration with other private investors. It is rumored that financing assistance was provided by The Maas brothers, who wanted the most elaborate movie palace in Florida to be next to their department store for the same reasons that shopping malls today want multiplexes in or next to them: theatres are people magnets and bring potential customers to their doors. In the 1920’s over 3,000 movie theatres were built all across America, and about 300 of these were grand enough to be labeled a “movie palace”.
