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The iconic showplace at 1401 S. Alvernon Way, where countless Tucsonans have been smuggled and snuggled, has been sold.

Saturday night will be the last time Tucsonans can watch cheap double features from their cars and trucks before the screen fades and the credits roll.

The sequel for the property isn't totally clear, but it will likely become yet another commercial center at a busy intersection.

Evergreen Development Co., with offices in Phoenix and Glendale, Calif., has purchased the roughly 20 acres from the De Anza Land and Leisure Corp. for $2.8 million, in the range of $3 a square foot. Greg Furrier and Rob Tomlinson, of Picor Commercial Real Estate Services, handled the deal.

"We really don't have a plan," said Gregg Alpert, Evergreen's managing principal. "We do not have any immediate plans to develop it. We just like the property. Its infill location and heavy traffic count make it an intriguing purchase for us.

"But we are going to take our time to develop it," he added.

There are clues to what the drive-in will become after Saturday's grand finale. Evergreen is known for creating "neighborhood marketplaces" with grocery-store anchors. Its projects in the Old Pueblo include Steam Pump Village in Oro Valley, Madera Marketplace in Sahuarita, several Walgreens stores and a grocery-store project on the southwest side's Pascua Yaqui Reservation.

Los Angeles-based De Anza Land and Leisure Corp. purchased the drive-in theater in 1977, when it was called the Cactus Drive-In.

Nowadays, the drive-in is in need of numerous costly improvements, and the company had to sell it, Teri Oldknow, senior vice president for De Anza Land and Leisure, said in a written statement.

"The closing comes at a critical decision point for the business — in the near future, De Anza Land and Leisure would have to make major capital investments in the infrastructure of the drive-in, which was not financially feasible for us," Oldknow said.

De Anza Land and Leisure has roughly 210 employees and owns drive-ins in California, Utah, Arizona and Georgia. It's unclear what will happen to the drive-in's employees or when they were notified about the sale; Oldknow did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment.

Evergreen and De Anza had flirted with a deal in May 2008, but Alpert said it was nixed by market conditions — coupled with the intense public response about the drive-in's closure. De Anza, which Alpert said has been losing money, approached Evergreen about a new deal earlier this year.

"We did not approach them. They came to us," he said.

With no plans to immediately develop the site, Evergreen offered De Anza the chance to continue showing movies.

"We gave them the opportunity to stay, and they decided they didn't want to," Alpert said. "It's a money-losing venture for them. They gave it a good run."

In many ways, the drive-in's staying power for more than 55 years is more surprising than its coming closure.

There has been a steady decline in drive-ins across the country since the late 1950s.

As of Sept. 23, there were 381 drive-ins with 628 screens. Back in 1958, there were 4,063 drive-ins across the country, says the Maryland-based United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association.

The 1980s were particularly hard on the industry as thousands of drive-ins closed, but the 1990s showed a slight resurgence. The national economic downturn, though, has squelched that comeback.

The Tucson drive-in opened in 1951, showing "Arizona" — filmed at Old Tucson Studios — on the big screen, according to Star archives.

With its large screens looming over the intersection of South Alvernon Way and East 22nd Street, the De Anza gave the intersection a unique look and feel. Even if many Tucsonans didn't go there, especially in recent years, they still had strong feelings for the landmark.

"Oh, my God. I am heart- broken," said Stacy Peckham, who grew up in Tucson and attended a movie at the De Anza a few weeks ago. "Oh, no. I am absolutely heartbroken."

When the De Anza was almost sold a little more than a year ago, Peckham organized a group called "Save our De Anza." She even put up a Web site for the group, but stopped updating it once she thought the drive-in had been saved.

She said she knew the drive-in might be sold in the future, but she wasn't expecting to say goodbye so soon.

"I didn't know how long. I wasn't a fool. I knew that something down the road would have happened, but I also thought that we would know about it," she said. "For a city this size to be losing things — we don't have an overabundant amount of things to be doing in this city — and then to be losing them is tragic."

Peckham said she loved the drive-in: the coziness of watching movies from her own car, the spirited family environment and the affordable double features.

"The weather is great. It's just a fabulous time," she said. "You could do whatever you wanted there in your car. You could bring your own food. You could bring your own drinks. If you wanted to chat during a scene, you could do that."

Alpert said he understood the strong community connection to the drive-in, but he also questioned whether a drive-in was the highest and best use of the land. Roughly 100,000 vehicles pass through the intersection each day, he said.

The site will have its challenges. There is a wash that cuts through the property, which creates setback issues. And then there is the economy. Alpert said any large project is probably a few years out.

"It's a great piece of land that we would be glad to own and develop in a high-quality way someday," Alpert said. "They feel good that they actually found somebody to buy the property in this market."

By the numbers

• 4 drive-in theaters in Arizona

• 20 screens at those theaters

• 381 drive-in theaters across the country

• 628 screens

Source: United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association