PALACE Nova Cinemas will close its building on Rundle St and merge from two locations to one from Thursday.

The cinema on the south side of Rundle St will close and be merged into the nearby Cinema Place building, next to The Elephant British Pub in a laneway on the northern side of Rundle St.

Work has already started on the Eastend site — historically referred to as the Palace Building — to expand it to 12 screens.

The cinema has operated across two buildings on opposing sides of Rundle St for more than a decade.

Palace Nova Eastend itself started out as three separate cinemas — The Imax, Palace Cinemas and Nova Cinemas.

Palace Nova is also expanding out of the city to a new site at Prospect, which is currently under construction

The cinema’s marketing manager, Yolanda Sulser, said she couldn’t say too much about the reason for the closure, only that it was a move that had been discussed for “for some time”.

“We are just really excited to get it in the one building, it’s a bit bittersweet to lose the Nova building, it has a wonderful balcony, but the silver lining is people won’t get confused,” she said.

“It’s not a large factor in the reasons we are closing, it’s something we have all dealt with comfortably but it’s definitely a silver lining.”

The Nova building is owned by the Maras Group.

Managing director Steve Maras said he was in talks with a couple of groups planning something “new and exciting” for the building.

“It won’t be another cinema,” he said.