Tribune-Review, Trib North, Saturday, April 6th, 2002, Feature Story

Era of silence nears ‘The End’

By Ashley Gerwig

The sale of Zelienople’s nearly 90-year-old Strand Theater could be finalized by the end of the month.

Marketing consultant Ron Carter last year started working to gather support and money for his plan of renovating Zelienople’s dilapidated Strand Theater, which showed its last movie nearly 20 years ago and has sat vacant since.

Carter’s first challenge has been raising the $150,000 needed to purchase the building from current owner Gloria Nalevanko.

Although he has raised only $14,000 so far, Carter said the Strand Theater Initiative should close the sale within three weeks, thanks to several loans. Carter founded the non-profit group.

“It’s certainly been quite a roller-coaster ride. It’s had its peaks and valleys,” said Carter of Cranberry Township. “There’s been plenty of days I think: ‘Why am I doing this?’ But there are the other days that I can’t imagine not doing it. It’s going to be something so special.”

The Main Street theater was built in 1914 and is said to have housed a grocery store before it was converted into a 300-seat theater during the heyday of silent movies.

When the Strand Theater Initiative started collecting money last summer, Carter admitted, he expected donations to come in more quickly.

Once he realized he would not be able to raise enough money to buy the theater outright before a sales agreement expired, Carter began looking into a loan to purchase the theater.

What he didn’t have, however, was someone or some organization that agreed to guarantee that the loan would be paid if the donations never came though.

This week, Carter said he received word that – oddly enough – from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department has agreed to back the loan via a program to encourage rural development.

The non-profit group also has received a $50,000 loan-grant from Preservation Pennsylvania. Under the program, the initiative must repay two-thirds of the money, which is about $33,000.

On Friday – the day the sales agreement expired – Carter said Fidelity Bank in Zelienople had agreed to underwrite $100,000 of the loan, pending an official letter from the Department of Agriculture. The letter from the federal government is expected to arrive Monday.

Coupled with the $50,000 loan from Preservation Pennsylvania, the initiative has come up with enough money to purchase the theater.

Carter said the non-profit group now can set a closing date to finalize the purchase. He said he expects to close the deal within three weeks, which would give Fidelity Bank enough time to finalize paperwork.

Nalevanko said yesterday that because only a few details had to be worked out, she is willing to wait a few weeks for the closing.

While the bank finishes the paperwork, Carter said, he will get started raising enough money to pay off the mortgage by year’s end.

Raising money, he said, should be easier now that people realize the sale is almost finalized.

“I think it’s going to get easier once people know we have ownership,” Carter said. “We’ll throw a colorful banner over the marquee and say: ‘We own it Zelie. Now help us pay for it.”

After enough money is raised to pay off the mortgage, Carter said he plans to seek grant money and donations from foundations to cover the estimated $2 million worth of renovations.

In order to be considered for such grants, the community needs to show its support and interest by raising enough money to pay off the theater.

Carter said the support has been slow coming for several reasons.

Among the complicating factors, he said, are the fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the preference of some town merchants to have the theater torn down to make way for a parking lot.

“The fund-raising environment has not been very conducive since Sept. 11. It’s been difficult to get people behind the project,” Carter said. “People’s attention turned from community interests to national interests, which was the right thing to do. And in the last three or four months, the naysayers have had the upper hand, saying: ‘It’s never going to work.’”

If everything works out, Carter’s plans would include leaving the theater’s outside marquee the same but sprucing it up with fresh paint and new lights.

Carter said he also would extend the balcony to add about 100 seats, build out the stage to accommodate live acts and create a “classic theater” with chandeliers and crushed-velvet seats.

The theater would play host to professional touring acts as well as some community productions, said Carter. Tickets would be about $25, and valet parking would be offered to accommodate crowds.

Carter said the theater would be a non-profit operation, with ticket sales replenishing its annual budget.

Ashley Gerwig can be reached at agerwig@tribweb.com or (724) 779-7112.