Plan calls for $7.5 million to repurpose Charleroi’s Coyle Theater
An economic development group has a nearly $7.5 million plan to save the historic Coyle Theater from demolition and build a new structure beside it in downtown Charleroi.
The Mon Valley Alliance, which owns the building, made a plea Monday to receive a $288,000 share of the take at The Meadows Casino to prepare the closed theater for redevelopment.
“We want to prep it so that it’s ready to go,” Christopher Whitlatch, chief executive officer of the alliance, said after making a pitch for the money before the Local Share Account board.
The money would be used to gut the interior of the theater and create open spaces on the second and third floors of the building at 331 McKean Ave., Whitlatch said.
Longer-term plans call for the first floor to possibly have a smaller, 200-seat theater to be used as a meeting place, and for the showing of movies and small performances, he said. The first floor also would have a retail section to possibly establish a tap house.
The theater project would cost as much a $3.5 million, money that would include restoring the marquee and salvaging the movie projectors as museum pieces, Whitlatch said.
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
Christopher Whitlatch, chief executive officer of Mon Valley Alliance, makes a pitch Monday for slots money to fund renovation of the historic Coyle Theater in Charleroi.
A sister $4 million project would involve demolishing two neighboring buildings the alliance owns and constructing a new building that would share an elevator with the theater.
Whitlatch said the alliance could qualify for as much as $1.5 million in matching money from private foundations for the Coyle project.
The new buildings could qualify for federal money for construction, he said.
The alliance is funding the cost of a new roof on the Coyle building, work that should begin in the next few weeks, weather permitting, he added.
There have been a number unsuccessful attempts to reopen the nearly 1,000-seat Coyle after it closed in 1999 following the showing of “Titanic.” It originally was built in the 1890s as a burlesque house.
The alliance took ownership of the buildings in December 2015 from the Mid Mon Valley Cultural Trust. A leaking roof over the past decades has resulted in the inability to salvage much of anything that is left inside the theater, Whitlatch said.