Today, the future catches up with the Hiway Drive-in.
At 11 a.m., the 18-acre drive-in, which has stood at a rural crossroads outside Collegeville since 1962, will be sold to a real estate developer. The coming attraction will probably be a shopping center.
As the march of time continues out to areas that not so long ago were open country, the Hiway joins a long list of drive-ins that have been displaced by development.
Last summer, the Hiway was one of only five drive-ins in Pennsylvania and New Jersey listed in The Inquirer's weekend movie guide. Ten years ago, there were 13 drive-ins listed in the Pennsylvania suburbs and seven in South Jersey.
"It is a little bit of a shame," said Robert Ayerle, president of Parec Realty Inc. of Blue Bell, which is buying the Hiway. "I know I spent a lot of time in drive-ins. It really was a big part of American teenage life."
Ayerle said drive-ins are prime targets for development because they are usually on large tracts well located along highways, with commercial zoning already in place. He said he believes the Hiway is the last drive-in in Montgomery County.
"It's a prime commercial site right there, and that whole area is a hot spot for the future," said Gary Bolis Jr., a land broker specializing in Bucks and Montgomery Counties for Re/Max Real Estate Specialists in Plymouth Meeting.
Bolis, who brokered the sale of the Hiway, said that most of the open land around the drive-in had been sold for development recently, and the
intersection of Kline Road and Route 422, where the Hiway now stands alone, will soon be surrounded by hundreds of new homes.
The demise of the drive-in is not limited to the Philadelphia area, where, by the way, the first drive-in opened on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden in 1933.
Ten years ago, there were 3,626 drive-in theaters nationwide; last year, there were 2,084. In Pennsylvania, the number of drive-ins has dropped from 156 in 1982 to 110 last year. And in New Jersey, there are but 14 drive-ins left, according to the National Association of Theater Owners.
In addition to the Hiway, the drive-ins remaining on The Inquirer's movie guide through last summer were the Bucks County Twin on Route 611 north of Willow Grove, the 202 Drive-in on Route 202 south of West Chester, the Atco Twin at White Horse Pike and Route 73 in Berlin and the Super 130 on Route 130 in Edgewater Park, Burlington County. Most drive-ins in this area close during the winter.
