South Fayette board agrees to sell Star City site
BRIDGEVILLE– The site of the former Star City movie theater will be sold to a Pittsburgh real estate development company that plans to turn it into a restaurant and retail complex.
South Fayette Township’s board of commissioners agreed Wednesday to accept a $3.5 million bid from Burns & Scalo Equities for the 8.5-acre site, which the township has owned since 2009.
Jim Scalo, the president of Burns & Scalo, said the development would “be a great complement” to the Newbury Market that is slowly evolving across Route 50.
The sale of the property will close within the next few months, according to township manager John Barrett.
Burns & Scalo placed with the second-highest bid on the property; Cleveland-based apartment developer NRP Group placed a $4 million bid, but it was withdrawn because the township did not want to accept by June 26 a letter of intent it submitted. Barrett also noted, if the NRP Group bid had been accepted, the property would have had to have been rezoned from commercial use to residential use.
South Fayette purchased the multiplex and the land around it in 2009 with the intention of making it a community center. Two other attempts to sell the property foundered.
Commissioner Joseph Horowitz thanked Scalo for purchasing the Star City site and said, “I feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders today.”
Star City Cinemas opened in 2000, and closed five years later. It reopened as a discount, second-run theater in 2006, but closed in 2008. The building was torn down in 2017.