Despite porn theater, city to develop blighted area

Former Steeler Franko Harris plans to open a restaurant near the porn theater.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- At first glance, the Garden Theatre appears to be just another remnant of Pittsburgh's rich past, with its neon-lighted marquee perched high above a busy street and its majestic facade tarnished.
But the early 19th-century building -- the city's last adult movie house -- has been the subject of a bitter struggle over urban revitalization for nearly a decade. Now authorities are poised to draw the curtains on its 35-year run as a showcase for porn.
The Garden's owner, George Androtsakis, of New York, refused to sell the theater to the city under a 1990s redevelopment plan for the area, a blighted corridor lined with historic buildings in the North Side neighborhood. Instead, he engaged in a legal battle that has cost both sides hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
In December, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a bid by the city to take the theater through eminent domain legislation. Androtsakis, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to calls for comment, was expected to appeal the decision.
Regardless of the outcome, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said the city will move forward with redevelopment projects in the area, issuing a request last week for proposals to develop 10 parcels -- eight buildings and two vacant lots -- around the theater.
"We could have used the Garden Theatre as an excuse, as has been done in the past," the mayor said at a news conference outside the theater earlier this month. "But I've taken the mind-set, let's get it done."
The move highlighted a shift in the city's approach to redevelopment.
Jerome Dettore, executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, said the city previously held that "until the Garden Theatre was in our control, we couldn't really offer a developer the property" because the theater would "reduce or impede a developer in thinking about the highest and best uses."
"We saw the Garden Theatre as a fly in the ointment," he said. "We've since modified our thinking."
State Sen. Jim Ferlo said: "We don't really care about the Garden at this point. The Garden, legally, is going to take whatever course it's going to take. We're not going to sit around any longer and wait for that issue. We need to get moving."
Another consideration
Some experts say the change may reflect a trend in U.S. cities toward putting economic development above all else.
David Wilson, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said cities may have fought adult book stores and similar venues for moral reasons in the past, but that such battles are more likely to be waged today to attract investors and jobs.
"It's justified by the city on the grounds that we've got to be economically competitive like never before," he said, describing an "obsession" among city officials with global competition that he said is based partly on myth.
City officials tried to seize the Garden in 1997 after acquiring dozens of adjacent properties as part of a redevelopment strategy for the North Side corridor, where a major hospital and museums have taken root, but crime persists.
Though authorities initially contended the theater was holding up multi-million-dollar improvement plans, Androtsakis claimed moviegoers had a First Amendment right to see his theater's pornographic films.
The surrounding area, a short distance from two relatively new sports stadiums, has languished in the meantime. Abandoned buildings with boarded windows stand within feet of the Garden's blinking lights and the towering Allegheny General Hospital.
Peter N. Georgiades, a lawyer who represented Androtsakis from 1997 to 2004, said the Garden became an adult theater in 1972 because of the overall degeneration of the neighborhood, which made pornography an attractive business proposition.
"They couldn't fill the theater with anything else," he said, adding that his client -- who also owns mostly foreign language film theaters in New York, New Jersey and Florida -- earned about 50,000 annually in profit from the Garden.
Owner's side
"People will travel from the next county to go to an adult theater," Georgiades said. "But people don't go through nasty neighborhoods with abandoned buildings to see 'Lethal Weapon 2.'"
He said the city refused to hear a proposal by Androtsakis that would have turned the theater into a community-oriented multiplex, albeit one that included a separate screen for adult films.
Androtsakis did not immediately respond to messages left at a number listed under his name.
The rundown stretch near the theater is among many distressed areas in Pittsburgh, a "Rust Belt" city still trying to recover from a steep economic decline after the departure of the steel industry, once a mainstay of the economy.
Signs of growth on the North Side seem clear. A development group plans to build a casino that could bring spin-off projects such as a hotel. The group also plans to help subsidize community development efforts.
A new library and new residential buildings are in the works.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers great Franco Harris bought a home in the neighborhood in 1974 and plans to open a Mediterranean-themed cafe in a vacant building a few doors down from the Garden this summer.
"We have a lot of great community groups here on the North Side, and they fought here for many, many years to keep improving it and doing things, and now it seems like things are coming together," he said.
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