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January/February 2010, mtl - Mt. Lebanon Magazine
Will the Balcony Reopen?
by M. A. Jackson
“If we don’t save the Denis Theatre, there will never again be a movie theater in Mt. Lebanon’s central business district,” says Anne Kemerer. That may sound dramatic, but Kemerer should know – as executive director of the Denis Theatre Foundation she has spent the last two years reading about main street initiatives and talking to experts in commercial district management.
Kemerer says that economic development studies show that three things – a theater, a book store and a grocery – are major contributors to the vitality of a main street. “A book store or grocery could move [onto Washington Road] with little work,” Kemerer says, “but if [the Denis] is torn down, no one will ever build a new one.”
Enter the Denis Theatre Foundation, a nonprofit group whose mission is to purchase, renovate and reopen the Denis as an independent theater and community cultural center.
Since 2008, the foundation has been hosting events and raising funds to bring back the once-grand theater. From cleaning the interior of debris to holding Last Saturday Cinema – a summer movie series behind the theater on Parse Way – the foundation has been an active and visible presence in the community. ....[click here for complete story]
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