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Key week for Penn Theater

Meeting may decide future

The fate of the former Penn Theater may be determined in the next few days.

The city redevelopment authority, which is paying the mortgage on the theater, will meet Wednesday with the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation to discuss transferring the mortgage to a private firm.

Art Cordwell, executive director of the authority, said at the agency’s meeting Thursday that a person is interested in leasing the theater to renovate it, but does not want to commit to the same monthly payment the authority owes.

“The rent he wants to pay and the rent we need to pay to cover our debt is different,” Cordwell said.

If the individual, who Cordwell would not name, took over the theater, he would renovate it as a theater or for other uses, including community activities.

It will be up to the foundation to allow the private buyer to take over the structure at a lower payment.

“They can do that,” Cordwell said. “They hold the mortgage.”

The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation has the mortgage on the property. The authority used funding through the foundation’s loan program in 2007 to buy the vacant building in the 100 block of Main Street for about $250,000.

Since then it has paid about $22,000, mostly to cover the interest on the mortgage.

The authority began having financial issues with the theater this year when the state denied its request to use a grant to pay the mortgage.

The authority wanted to use about $15,000 to pay the mortgage as it has done in the past. But the state said the authority could no longer allocate state funds to the project because it did not have an identifiable plan to be completed within three years, which is a requirement of the grant.

Unable to pay its mortgage, the authority needs to find someone who can.

Cordwell has been discussing the plan with the prospective buyer for a couple months. He said if the plan falls through, the authority would have few options.

“If this doesn’t work, the building will just sit there until the (foundation) forecloses on it,” he said.

If that were to happen, the authority would be relieved of the debt, Cordwell said, because the only asset pledged to the mortgage is the theater itself.

Arthur Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks, said the meeting Wednesday will be a good opportunity to discuss the theater.

“We’ve been trying to get a meeting set up about the theater,” he said. “I look forward to talking about it.”

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