The sale of West Pikeland community theater’s home is on hold for now, after public support
The township is examining whether it can legally require a purchaser to maintain the license agreement with SALT Performing Arts, which spent roughly $400,000 in building improvements.
After a packed house decried the possibility of a community theater being left without a home, the West Pikeland supervisors will halt putting the property up for bid while they examine legal avenues regarding the theater’s existing license agreement.
The board of supervisors on Monday voted unanimously to rescind a vote taken last week to advertise a bid packet that would have put the municipal building, which also houses SALT Performing Arts, up for sale in the coming weeks. The audience, which filled the meeting room, applauded when the motion passed.
“For the moment, we feel hopeful,” Lauren McComas, president of SALT, said Tuesday. “Largely because the community has really rallied around this.”
The officials are awaiting further guidance from the township’s solicitor about whether they can require a potential buyer to retain SALT’s existing license agreement to use a portion of the space. That requirement could undercut the bids they receive, supervisor Bryan Maher said. The solicitor on Monday said she was looking at what could be done.
“When we get that answer, we will announce that publicly here so there’s no lack of understanding of what our legal guidance is and what we can and cannot do,” Maher told those in attendance. “There’s a lot to unpack here.”
» READ MORE: A community theater spent $400,000 on renovations. Now, the town may sell the building and leave them without a home.
The delay in selling the building, located at 1645 Art School Rd. in Chester Springs, comes after residents pleaded last week for additional protections to preserve a 10-year license agreement with SALT.
The agreement, signed originally in 2023, was struck after SALT offered to make roughly $400,000 in capital improvements to the building in exchange for 10 years of fixed rent in the space. The township acquired the property in 2005, and SALT has been a tenant since 2014. A second building on the property houses the police force, which the community rallied to save several years ago.
West Pikeland did not plan on selling the property when it made the agreement, officials have said. But the township is looking to improve its police department. In order to purchase another building, at 1001 Kimberton Rd., to provide more space and improved facilities for its officers, it wants to sell the existing township building to offset the costs, officials said previously.
SALT and the building’s former owner, Historic Yellow Springs, were offered first right of refusal for the purchase of the property. McComas said previously that SALT was unable to afford it after years of fundraising for the renovations it completed last year.
McComas said Tuesday that SALT was looking into creative solutions with Historic Yellow Springs for acquiring the property. But without a lot of time to fundraise, “we’re hoping they do the right thing in the end and somehow figure out a way to require us in the bid if we can’t come up with a creative solution prior to that,” she said.
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