Concept Art Gallery buys Regent Square Theater
Concept Art Gallery has purchased its next-door neighbor, the Regent Square Theater, which has been closed since 2019.
Alison Oehler and Sam Berkovitz, co-owners of Concept, began eyeing the Edgewood property as soon as it closed. Negotiations began in earnest a year ago with the Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media, and the deal closed Thursday morning.
The 85-year-old theater, which opened in December 1936, has a relatively new roof but its bathrooms, plumbing and wiring are outdated. The price paid for the building at 1035 S. Braddock Ave. was not disclosed. In 2020, the building and land had a total assessed value of $278,400, according to Allegheny County property records.
For decades, the Regent Square Theater was the home of the Three Rivers Film Festival and a popular venue to see classic Hollywood movies, foreign films and documentaries.
Kyle Houser, executive director of the Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media, said there were no plans to reopen the theater. The nonprofit lost more than $300,000 last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, noting that it couldn’t offer its usual run of 85 to 95 summer art camps. Last year, it had much fewer camps.
“We ran one in-person, half-day camp per week for 10 weeks. We ran virtual camps three times a week.”
Proceeds from the theater sale will go back into programming, Mr. Houser said.
Ms. Oehler said purchasing the movie theater will allow Concept Art Gallery to have several storefronts beside its current location at 1031 S. Braddock Ave. The theater’s lobby will become an art gallery along with two small storefronts that bookend the building’s front entrance.
“It’s going to be good for our business,” she said.
The two small storefronts will become gallery spaces for pop-up
exhibitions to highlight the work of emerging artists.
“We always felt we lacked the space to do pop-up exhibitions for new and exciting artists,” Mr. Berkovitz said. “The spaces that are self-contained on the front of the building we can open as people request to see the exhibitions we show in them. We don’t have to hire someone to sit in these galleries.”
The theater is empty now, but the seats remain. Turning a movie theater into gallery and office space will be a challenge for Indovina Associates Architects, Ms. Oehler said.
“It is a very specific space,” she said, noting that the theater has a sloping floor. But the Guggenheim museums in New York City and Bilbao, Spain, have sloping floors, she said, so “I don’t think it’s an impossible task.”
The theater will provide Concept Art Gallery with space for a photo studio
where artwork and furniture can be photographed for online auctions and Instagram posts.
Purchasing the theater will provide much-needed space for storing artwork and furniture plus offices for additional staff. Most of the building’s lobby, including its old concession stand, will expand toward the back of the theater and become gallery space.
Since the early 2000s, when Concept began selling artwork and antique furniture online, that segment of its business has grown dramatically. The gallery offers framing services, mounts exhibitions and sells entire estates and art collections.
“In the early 2000s, we would sell about 15-20% of our lots to online bidders,” Mr. Berkovitz said. “Now we’re selling upwards of 50% of our lots to online bidders. We also do auctions where everything is sold online. It’s a global business.”
The purchase will mean more room to store and display items, he said. “We don’t have to have things under the staircases, behind every wall and in closets.”
Work inside the theater may begin in about six months, Ms. Oehler said.
“It will take time to get the plans together,” she said, adding that the business will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
In July, Concept will open an exhibition titled “Full Circle.” Ms. Oehler and Mr. Berkovitz will curate the show. Artists may apply for inclusion in the exhibition by emailing up to three photographs of artwork that responds to the theme of circle as shape and metaphor to info@conceptgallery.com.