The venue opened in 1920 and was Sheffield’s largest cinema at the time, with capacity for 1,560 people.
It was known as the “picture palace” because of its ornate interiors, but closed in 1975, and after 1991 was used as a furniture showroom.
Mr Yeardley has been renovating pubs for more than 30 years but said he planned to turn Abbeydale into a gig and entertainment venue.
“I like buildings that have, what I call, a lot of love marks – it’s just got so much brilliant history and no one has got a bad word to say about it,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to being able to pick up pieces from other old cinemas from around the same time and putting some glamour of the 1920s and 30s back into the building.”
However, he said parts of the site needed “quite a bit of work” to be done on them.
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