When I was a kid, I remember heading toward my dad’s house near Elkhart and passing a Walmart on the right just as another Walmart appeared on the left. To my young mind, Goshen must have been some kind of booming metropolis if it needed two of the superstores practically across the street from each other! Before long, though, the older one was replaced by a movie theater. Today, that same building is a church. It’s funny how places reinvent themselves.
Walmart -then known as Wal-Mart- built 69,000-square-foot store at Goshen’s Lincolnway East and Eisenhower Drive in 19891. It lasted until 1998, when the company built a 200,000-square foot2 supercenter just southeast3. After Wal-Mart moved, it joined with Carmike Cinemas to fill the old store with Hollywood Connection a six-screen theater that opened in 19974. Others in Valparaiso, Indiana, and DeKalb, Illinois, quickly followed5.
Hollywood Connection was an interesting joint-venture. Wal-Mart and Carmike split the costs of renovation and got equal shares in profits. Wal-Mart rented to the building to Carmike but paid it to manage the operation. Aside from six second-run movie screens, Hollywood Connection featured an indoor roller rink, a video arcade, bumper cars, a “soft play area,” and a large concession stand6. Unfortunately, the complex closed in 20007.
These days, Goshen’s old Walmart and Hollywood Connection has been repurposed as Maple City Chapel. Unfortunately, I’m not sure exactly when the church bought the structure since most of the county’s GIS is impossible to search thanks to a paywall8. I’ll never include a paywall on my research! From what I’ve been able to glean, Maple City Chapel says that it’s “been creating space for people who don’t fit the mold since 1971.” It started as Teen Haven as a downtown Goshen storefront, changed its name, then bought an old church on East Jefferson Street in 1982. Its history goes blank after then, at least as deep as I’m willing to dive9.
In a way, the old building at Lincolnway and Eisenhower perfectly illustrates how communities evolve. Over the last thirty-seven years, it’s sold groceries, shown movies, and provided a place for worship. Each incarnation may have seemed permanent at the time, but each eventually gave way to something new. I still can’t drive past without remembering the bewilderment of seeing two Walmarts across the street from one another and wondering what kind of booming city Goshen must be. I never imagined one of them would become a movie theater and then a church! That’s the fun of paying attention to old buildings: their stories rarely end where you expect them to.
Sources Cited
1 Kurowski, J. (1996, April 7). Wal-Mart to build new Goshen store. The South Bend Tribune. p. 26.
2 New Wal-Mart to open in early 1997 in Goshen (199, November 14). The South Bend Tribune. p. 10.
3 Shenk, D. (1996, January 26). Wal-Mart will try for new site again. The Elkhart Truth. p. 1.
4 Hollywood Connection (n.d.). Cinema Treasures. Web. Retrieved May 31, 2026.
5 Kurowski, J. (1998, May 18). In a former Wal-Mart grows a Hollywood Connection. The South Bend Tribune. p. 70.
6 (See footnote 5).
7 (See footnote 4).
8 Parcel 20-11-23-251-001.000-015 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Elkhart County [Elkhart]. Web. Retrieved May 31, 2026.
9 Our History (n.d.). Who We Are. MCC [Goshen]. Web. Retrieved May 31, 2026.
