Judge rescinds theater transfer
An order Tuesday from Senior Judge John C. Reed in Washington County Court temporarily rescinded the sale of the historic Coyle Theater in Charleroi to the Middle Monongahela Industrial Development Association, which has plans to redevelop the property.
The attorney representing Charleroi Area Historical Society, which filed a lawsuit to prevent the Mid-Mon Valley Cultural Trust from selling the theater and two neighboring buildings, was granted the injunction Tuesday, the day after MIDA closed on the property. Further arguments in the dispute are scheduled for Monday before Reed.
“We got the temporary injunction to prevent any further sale and to prevent demolition of the property because we had reports that led us to believe its imminent destruction could be near,” said Richard Haft, the society’s attorney in the case.
“It’s rather telling (the trust) accelerated the sale after being served with the complaint,” Haft said Wednesday.
“It became a sale in a much quicker time frame than anyone believed,” he said.
MIDA paid nothing to the trust for the theater and the building the trust owned next door, both of which have an address of 335 McKean Ave., Washington County tax records show.
The selling price for the third building the trust owned at the corner of McKean Avenue and Fourth Street was $19,500, tax records show.
Historical society members Nikki Sheppick and Kenneth Thompson, two of the individual plaintiffs, argued the trust has a charter that does not allow assets of the 125-year-old theater to be sold to a third party whose goals don’t include preservation of the theater that went dark in 1999.
MIDA President John LaCarte said despite MIDA’s merger last week with the Mon Valley Progress Council to rebrand as the Mon Valley Alliance, any sale documents would become valid under the newly-named operation.
“It will be the same organization. It’s simply been renamed. It will continue to exist as it always has but through a new rebranding which takes effect April 1,” LaCarte said.
He said the MIDA board voted to move on the property last week after legal counsel advised it that “they had every right to close on the property.”
Judge Reed’s order reads in part that the temporary injunction issued “(restrains) the defendants and their assigns, including but not limited to (MIDA) from distributing, liquidating, or taking any action affecting the physical integrity of the land, building(s), and assets.”
An attorney for the trust had yet to enter an appearance in the case Wednesday.
Staff writer Scott Beveridge contributed to this report.