The Roxy Theatre: Parramatta’s Forgotten Icon
If you were around Parramatta in the 80s or 90s, chances are you’ve got a Roxy Theatre story. Maybe it was queuing up for Star Wars or Alien, the smell of popcorn drifting out onto George Street. Maybe it was Friday nights at the nightclub, or watching footy on what was once Sydney’s biggest screen in the west. For an entire generation of Western Sydney locals, the Roxy wasn’t just a venue, it was the place things happened.
Today, it sits locked and crumbling in the middle of one of the busiest transformation zones in the state, and its future is genuinely uncertain.
A Grand History Hiding in Plain Sight
Built in 1930 in the Spanish Mission style, the Roxy opened as a nearly 2,000-seat cinema, run first by Hoyts and later sold to Village Cinemas. Its opening night in February 1930 was, by all accounts, a huge deal for the area, complete with a formal dedication ceremony and thousands gathered outside to see it lit up for the first time. Neighbourhood Media
In 2002, the site was purchased by K Capital Group’s David Kingston and reimagined as a nightclub, before closing permanently in 2014. It’s been sitting empty ever since, a heritage-listed relic in a city that’s grown up around it.
Why It’s Under Threat
This is where it gets messy. In 2024, Kingston lodged a development application to turn the site into a dining and entertainment precinct, scrapping earlier plans for a 29-storey tower. The idea was to open the Roxy up toward the future Parramatta Metro station, blending the heritage building with the new infrastructure being built right next to it.
The application was rejected, largely because Sydney Metro, which compulsorily acquired the surrounding land in 2019, refused to grant access. Kingston has since taken legal action against Sydney Metro, accusing it of “sterilising” the site and blocking any real chance of restoration.
It’s not the first time a redevelopment plan for the Roxy has been knocked back either. An earlier concept for an office tower, which would have destroyed all but the upper Dress Circle of the theatre, was rejected by the Heritage Council of NSW and the Sydney West Central Planning Panel back in 2018, a decision later upheld on appeal.
The Fight to Save It
There’s a real community push to see the Roxy restored rather than redeveloped. The Roxy Theatre Action Group has been campaigning for years to bring the theatre back as a full-scale performing arts venue, capable of hosting musicals, opera and live music, not just a fragment of what it once was.
Both sides of NSW politics have publicly backed the idea of the government stepping in. In February 2023, the then Arts Minister announced a commitment to acquire and restore the Roxy, and NSW Labor made a similar pledge the following month. Then in August 2025, City of Parramatta Council unanimously passed a motion calling on the NSW Government to invest in the revitalisation of the Roxy Theatre and restore it to its full potential as a premier live music and entertainment venue in the heart of Western Sydney.
Despite the bipartisan support, nothing has actually happened yet. The building keeps decaying, month after month, while everyone waits for someone to make the first move.
Why This Matters for Western Sydney
The Roxy sits right in the middle of Parramatta’s biggest transformation in decades, with the Civic Link pedestrian boulevard under construction on one side and the future Metro West station on the other. If it’s lost, it won’t just be a building disappearing, it’ll be one of the last physical links to what Parramatta’s nightlife and entertainment scene used to look like.
If you grew up going to the Roxy, or you’ve just walked past that quiet, locked-up facade on George Street without knowing its story, this is a piece of Western Sydney history worth paying attention to, especially while its fate still hangs in the balance.
