Future of Main Street venue could be limited by its size
By Scott Deacle
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
 |
|
The Penn Cinemas on Main Street Butler are closed and up for sale.
|
The marquee is blank above the Penn Cinemas in downtown Butler. How long it will stay that way is anybody’s guess.
The Penn, a two-screen Main Street movie theater, closed in May without comment from its owners, Theater Management of DeLand, Fla. Representatives did not return phone calls.
Though old-fashioned movie theaters like the Penn add charm to small city centers by evoking bygone days, the marketplace has turned to spacious multiplexes with large parking lots. Two such complexes – Cinema World at Clearview Mall, with six screens, and Regal Cinemas at Moraine Pointe Plaza, with 10 – are within a few miles of the Penn.
It can also be difficult to find another use for the theater buildings.
| Zelienople residents know this. Businesses and apartments occupy most of the buildings in downtown Zelienople. But the Strand Theater, a one-screen movie house built in 1914, has been vacant since the early 1980s. Borough leaders and potential outside buyers have struggled to find a use for the Strand. Some residents suggested tearing it down for a parking lot. Last year, the federal General Services Administration asked the borough to consider buying the Strand and leasing it to the FBI, but the deal never developed. The cost of buying, demolishing or renovating the building has blocked the property’s redevelopment. |
Will the Penn suffer the same fate?
Loren Houpt hopes not. The president of the Downtown Butler Association said the movie house brings a valuable old-fashioned look to Main Street.
“We certainly don’t want to lose it,” Houpt said.
The theater opened April 22, 1938. According to The Butler Eagle, “A large crowd thronged the theater for an opportunity to see one of the most modern theaters in Western Pennsylvania.”
That first day, the Penn played “The Girl of the Golden West,” starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. In addition to the movie, spectators enjoyed an air conditioning system that could be used in both winter and summer. Theater manager George A. Notopoulos received congratulatory letters from Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields and Martha Ray upon the opening of the $125,000 building.
Theater Management, which also operates the Pioneer Drive-in in Center, renovated the theater in 1996 and 1997. The company reconstructed most of the building, installed a Dolby surround-sound system and added new seats, carpet, wall treatments and lighting.
The $250,000 renovation also added a second screen for foreign language and art films.
The theater attracted crowds over the last couple of years, while the six-screen theater at Clearview Mall was temporarily closed. Houpt said. That theater reopened April 6, which may have hastened the Penn’s demise.
What alternative uses are there for a building designed for the sole purpose of showing movies and selling popcorn?
The next-closest thing to showing movies is showing live theater or music. Local arts leaders said the theater is in good condition, but it would need substantial renovation to host live performances.
Butler Arts Council president Phillip Ball said he looked at the Penn and concluded it wouldn’t meet the needs of larger groups such as the Bulter Symphony Orchestra and the Musical Theater Guild.
For one thing, it lacks dressing rooms and a stage. Also, its 500 seats aren’t enough – the symphony and guild draw crowds of 1,000 or more for their performances at the Butler intermediate and senior high school auditoriums.
Butler Little Theater Chairman of the Board Ron Lockwood said his group is happy with its location in a restored carriage house on Howard Street in downtown Butler.
“If we had the money for a renovation, [the Penn] would make a terrific community theater,” he granted.
| Such a renovation might be in the Strand’s future, after more than 15 years of vacancy. Cranberry resident Ron Carter announced in May that he is forming a nonprofit group in hopes of turning the Strand into a live dinner theater for traveling professional shows. A 37-year-old free-lance marketing consultant, Carter created the Strand Theater Initiative to raise money to renovate and operate the theater. Carter, who worked on stage and behind the scenes in high school, college and community theaters, said while there are amateur theaters in the area, there are no professional playhouses. With 300 to 400 seats, the Strand could be the right size for a traveling group that isn’t big enough to play in Heinz Hall, Carter said. And with thousands of affluent people living and moving in, Pittsburgh’s northern suburbs should have a market for live professional theater, he said. “It presents a lot of opportunities for traveling organizations to get in the Pittsburgh market, plus it brings that level of art into the northern area,” Carter said. It could also make the northern suburbs a little more interesting, he said. “Aside from restaurant chains, there’s really nothing really original going on outside of Downtown proper, nothing cultural, no point of differentiation,” Carter said. But Carter faces the challenge of finding enough money to convert the theater. The Strand Theater Initiative must pay $150,000 for the building. Carter estimates the nonprofit corporation will need another $500,000 to $750,000 to renovate it. He plans to seek donations and grants from private sources. |
ISSUE AT A GLANCE
Downtown movie theaters can’t compete with multiplexes, but don’t convert easily to other uses.
THE PLAYERS: Theater Management, owner of the Penn Cinemas in downtown Butler; local arts group leaders; Ron Carter, a Cranberry resident leading the effort to restore the Strand Theater in downtown Zelienople.
THE SITUATION: The Penn closed last month, raising fears that it could meet the same fate as the Strand, which has been vacant for a decade and a half. Meanwhile, a new effort to renovate the Strand in underway.
POSSIBLE OUTCOMES: The Penn and Strand both need costly renovations to be converted to new uses. There’s no guarantee that the initiative for the Strand will work, and no guarantee that such a commitment will arise for the Penn.