State Theater officials still looking to bring IMAX to Johnstown through deed restriction

State theater officials said they are still waiting to see if they are going to be able to negotiate past a deed restriction stopping the IMAX theater plans.

In the 1970s county amusements owned the state theater building, and when selling it to Lee Hospital put a restriction on the building that it could not be used to show motion pictures again.

That restriction was found earlier this year and now owners of County Amusements, which owns Richland Cinemas, is looking to get paid to potentially take away that restriction according to executive director of the state theater foundation Eric Reighard.

Attorney's representing the state theater and County Amusements have been in contact according to Reighard, but not recently.

According to representatives of the State Theater, they had an April 15th deadline date to hear back from county amusements but said they have not gotten back in the negotiations yet.

Reighard said if an agreement can be made construction would start very shortly after because the IMAX contract is already signed and transferring ownership of the building from Conemaugh to the Redevelopment Authority is also already in place.

“We were planning on starting construction in February,” Reighard said. “We have since been unable to do that, so our goal is really just to have this move forward as fast as possible because at the end of the day it's a close to 100-year-old building that needs a new roof and every day that it rains, it's raining inside that building further deteriorating it.”

The ownership would be with the JRA while doing renovations before being transferred to the State Theater Foundation.

The redevelopment authority has been helping secure ownership and renovate the state theatre. An agreement would just have to be approved by the county amusements owners according to the state theater.

State theater officials said they will continue with their efforts.

“We're in this because we care about downtown and we're not going to give up. I think personally that IMAX in this location, in this building is too important to just gloss over or just give up on,” state theater foundation marketing director Troy Smajda said. “We want to be the only IMAX between Philly and Pittsburgh. That would be a huge tourist attraction for this town, and I don't think that we should give up on it and we won't.”

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