The long-dark Century 14 movie theater at 100 Central Ave. SW in downtown Albuquerque is finally getting a second act. NM Cactus Volleyball Club plans to transform the vacant building into a five-court facility called the Century Sportsplex and Entertainment Center, giving the club a dramatically larger home than its current two-court space.
From Movie Screens to Game Points
The theater has sat empty for years, according to KRQE, which reports that NM Cactus Volleyball is set to take over the space later this year. The club, a nonprofit that has operated since 2007 to develop competitive volleyball for athletes ages 8 to 18, calls the 2026-2027 season its 19th as a juniors program of USA Volleyball, according to NM Cactus Volleyball Club. Its current clubhouse sits at 3201 University Blvd. SE, Warehouse A, the club's site notes, making the downtown move a significant expansion for an organization that has been training young players in the city for nearly two decades.
The planned facility will hold five volleyball courts, the station reports, a leap from the two courts the club operates now. As for cost, accounts differ: KRQE reports the club's director said around $100,000 will go into renovations, while The Business Journals puts the renovation figure at $40,000. The Business Journals also identifies the facility's footprint at 33,817 square feet, though that number has not been independently verified elsewhere.
A Building With a Complicated Recent Past
This is not the first attempt to breathe new life into the shuttered theater, which closed in 2021. Plans once called for ABC Prep to relocate into the space, complete with floor plans for five basketball courts, but that deal collapsed when organizers could not secure financing. “We just couldn’t get the funding,” a source told the Albuquerque Journal after the property went up for sale for $14 million last year. The nearly 45,000-square-foot space already had large bathrooms and had been partially renovated for basketball courts, and two charter schools had also expressed interest in using it either as an athletic facility or a school, the Journal reported.
KRQE reports the volleyball club will open its new facility in the former theater space in December 2026. Once operational, the Century Sportsplex would mark a steep upgrade in scale for a club that has spent nearly two decades developing players out of a much smaller warehouse space.
Part of a Bigger Trend in Youth Sports
Mixed-use redevelopment is a broader trend in cities around the country. The AdventHealth Sports Park at Bluhawk in Overland Park was planned as a 420,000-square-foot facility, with a 260,000-square-foot first phase, and the Memphis Sports and Events Center is a 227,000-square-foot complex where basketball courts can be reconfigured into 32 volleyball courts.
For downtown Albuquerque, the conversion offers a concrete answer to a building that has stood empty since the pandemic-era closure of its theater, after at least one prior redevelopment plan fizzled for lack of funding. If the December 2026 timeline holds, the Century Sportsplex and Entertainment Center would give the city's youth volleyball scene a far bigger stage than the club has ever had.
