The Restoration · 2007 – 2025

Eighteen years. Twenty-one million dollars. One theater.

Nobody restores a movie palace overnight. It happened the only way it could: one roof patch, one grant application, one restored window at a time. Here is the ledger.

How It Happened

From “weeks away from a warehouse”
to reopening night

In 2007, the building was weeks away from becoming a storage warehouse for an electrical supply company. Instead, the newly formed Historic Lansdowne Theater Corporation bought it — debt-free, with public funds — and began a restoration that would take eighteen years, span five presidential administrations, and draw support from more than a thousand donors from Lansdowne to Tokyo.

The Project Ledger

2007
Building Purchase
HLTC acquires the theater debt-free using a Pennsylvania DCED grant secured through State Representative Nicholas Micozzie. The board commits to a single-screen future: a live music venue with the historic auditorium kept intact.
Funded by: PA Dept. of Community & Economic Development
$535,000
2008 – 09
Emergency Stabilization
Roof leaks repaired, a fire detection system installed, and the building’s offices and storefronts brought back to code after two decades of deferred maintenance.
$160,624
2011 – 12
Marquee Restoration
The plastic panels come down; refabricated metal letters outlined in blue neon spell LANSDOWNE once more, over 98 LED bulbs drawing an eighth of the original power. On October 5, 2012, hundreds fill the street to watch it relight for the first time since 1987.
Funded by: $126,500 CDBG grant (Delaware County Council) · individual donors · Greater Lansdowne Civic Association
$162,000
2014 – 15
Outdoor Lobby & Ticket Booth
The 1930s stainless steel exterior and original booth marble are recovered; custom glass is replicated from surviving 1927 pieces. What the termites and water had taken, craftsmen put back.
Funded by: Community Development Block Grant (Delaware County Council)
$162,700
2017 – 18
Window Restoration
The original galvanized steel windows — ninety years old — are conserved with their historic locks, pulls, and pulleys intact. “Ready for another 90+ years of service.”
Team: Materials Conservation · Funded by: Presser Foundation, PA Historical & Museum Commission
$98,000
2019
Facade Restoration
Corbels cleaned, broken marble replaced, metal balcony railings restored — and the cast stone finials, missing since the 1960s, return to the roofline.
Team: Materials Conservation · Funded by: Delaware County Council, Presser Foundation, Connelly Foundation, Annual Fund donors
$203,000
2019
Ceiling Mockup
EverGreene Architectural Arts — under chairman Jeff Greene — demonstrates the restoration approach with Dutch Gold and aluminum leaf gilding, proving the auditorium can look as bright as the day it opened.
Team: EverGreene Architectural Arts
$35,000
2018 – 20
Architectural Reports & Design
Environmental studies, an economic impact analysis, and the master design that would guide everything after.
Funded by: $89,050 DCED grant matched by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and individual donors
$310,720
2020 – 21
Construction Drawings
The complete architectural documentation for the rehabilitation and the new building addition.
Team: Atkin Olshin Schade Architects · Keast & Hood · Bruce E. Brooks & Associates · H. Gilroy Damon Associates · Accentech · Columbus Construction
$450,000
2021 – 22
Asbestos Remediation
Workers build temporary wooden platforms in an attic with no floor — “the ‘floor’ is the upper side of the ceiling below” — to contain and remove asbestos-wrapped ductwork. On schedule, on budget, zero incidents.
Funded by: Commonwealth Financing Authority grant + Annual Fund donors
$200,000
2022 – 25
The Full Rehabilitation
The hand-painted ceiling restored. The 244-socket chandelier rebuilt by Grand Light, with thirty-plus replica luminaires. Century-old tapestries cleaned, mended, and rehung. EverGreene’s artisans restore the painted balconettes. A new 1,500-square-foot patron lounge, lobby bar, dressing rooms, and 1,280 new seats. On August 22, 2025, Chazz Palminteri opens the house — sold out.
Lead architect: Atkin Olshin Schade · Interior artisans: EverGreene Architectural Arts · Chandelier: Grand Light
→ $21M
Total project investment $21,000,000
Hundreds of neighbors fill Lansdowne Avenue for the marquee relighting, October 2012
October 5, 2012 · the marquee relights, and Lansdowne shows up

The Coalition

Nobody does this alone

The restoration was funded by the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, Keystone Grants from the PA Historical & Museum Commission, Delaware County Council, a federal earmark secured by Senator Casey and Representative Scanlon, the National Endowment for the Arts, federal historic tax credits, and an $11.9 million loan package from the Reinvestment Fund — alongside the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Presser, Connelly, and Broughton foundations, the Foundation for Delaware County, corporate sponsors from WSFS Bank to Wawa, and more than 1,000 individual donors from across the country and as far away as Tokyo.

“Our goal is to transport people back to 1927 when they come in off the sidewalk, but in a way that meets modern needs.” — Matt Schultz, Executive Director

The restoration is finished.
The stewardship never is.

A century-old building never stops needing care. Your gift maintains what a thousand donors built.

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