Andrade made a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to build an upscale, state-of-the-art movie theatre in Kingston.

Designed by Boston University graduate John Pike,[3] the facility was constructed as a rival to Kingston's older Palace Theatre, operated by Audley Morais, and would secure exclusive deals with MGM and 20th-Century Fox.

[6] "As the manager of the Carib [Morris Cargill] explained later, 'MGM realised that if their films were even to be shown in Jamaica either the price would have to be reduced or the theatre monopoly would have to be broken.

"[7] The theatre, Jamaica's largest building upon its opening,[10] became Morais' first rival in 25 years; as the MGM and Fox titles came to the island, manager Morris Cargill wrote that "this did not come about without generating large amounts of bad blood on all sides.

"[11] "Faced with competition for his best customers—the middle and upper classes of Kingston," Morais bought the Carib through his Palace Amusement Company just before World War II.

In the late 1940s, the Palace Amusement Co. was acquired by the J. Arthur Rank company;[3] by 1954, the Carib's proscenium was removed to make way for a 58-foot screen accommodating CinemaScope films.

[12] In June 1972, the facility was host to the premiere of Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come, where its opening-night audience of 5,000 exceeded the seating capacity of 1,800.

[14][15][16] In 1982, John F. Allen of High Performance Stereo (HPS) installed the first computer-designed theatrical sound system at the Carib, profiled in two BoxOffice magazine articles (in October 1982 and February 1991).

"Starting in the auditorium's ceiling," recounted Allen, "the fire spread rapidly throughout the structure and turned the theatre into a smoldering ruin in just three hours.