Cascade Center facts for kids
The Cascade Center at the Riverplex is a cool place in downtown New Castle, Pennsylvania. It has shops, places to eat, and fun entertainment, both inside and outside. It opened in 2006. A big part of the center is built where the very first movie theater of the famous Warner Bros. used to be. That's why it's called "Cascade"! You can find it at the corner of East Washington Street and Mill Street. Since 2013, a company called Riverplex Partners, Inc. owns the complex. The top three floors are used by Refresh Dental Management as their main office.
How It All Started
The Warner brothers grew up near New Castle, in Youngstown, Ohio. They were sons of Polish Jewish immigrants who wanted to get into the new movie business. After showing a movie called The Great Train Robbery at a park in Youngstown, they came to New Castle. They showed the movie in an empty store where the Cascade Center is now. This simple theater was called the Bijou. They even borrowed chairs from a local funeral home!
In 1906, the brothers bought a small theater nearby in New Castle. They named it the Cascade Movie Palace, inspired by the nearby Cascade Park. They ran this theater until 1907, when they started focusing on distributing films to other theaters.
Over time, the Bijou building was used by other businesses. The Cascade Movie Palace was eventually torn down to make space for a parking lot. By the 1980s, many buildings in New Castle, like in other "Rust Belt" cities, became empty. This happened because the steel industry, which provided many jobs, collapsed. Also, more people started moving to the suburbs, leaving downtown areas less busy.
By the mid-1990s, only two businesses were still open where the Cascade Center is now. One was Main Street Clothiers & Custom Tailors, a men's suit shop. It was in the same building that once held the Bijou theater. The other business was the B&O Railroad Federal Credit Union. This credit union had its own building built on the site of the old Cascade theater, after it became a parking lot.
In 1996, a part of the wall of the Bijou building fell onto East Washington Street, a main road. This happened next to Main Street Clothiers, which had just opened three years before. The city of New Castle was almost going to declare the building unsafe and tear it down. But at the last minute, people discovered how important the building was to history. This saved it! The city then announced plans to rebuild the area into what would become the Cascade Center.
Building the Center
The city took over most of the property through a process called eminent domain (where the government can buy private property for public use). They fixed the parts of the wall that had fallen, closing the sidewalk to keep people safe. The city also convinced the B&O Credit Union (now called First Choice Federal Credit Union) to move temporarily to a nearby mall. This allowed the city to buy their property for the Cascade Center. (The credit union later moved back into its own building in a different town.)
Main Street Clothiers was allowed to stay in their building, and they are still there today. Even though their part of the building isn't officially inside the Cascade Center, they advertise there. They've even grown their business by screen-printing T-shirts and serving as a J. C. Penney Catalog Center. Interestingly, Main Street is next to an old J. C. Penney store that is now being remodeled into a coffee shop.
Even though the downtown streets were rebuilt in the early 2000s to look like they did in the late 1800s, the Cascade Center itself didn't start being rebuilt until 2003. It was finished in 2006. The inside of the old buildings was completely redone. The site of the original Cascade theater was rebuilt to look very similar to the old one. Both the old and new parts of the complex now feel like one big building inside.
The city also bought the old Mellon Bank parking lot. They rebuilt it to be a parking lot for the whole downtown area, especially for the Cascade Center. The alley behind the buildings, which ran along Neshannock Creek, was closed off for good. It became a promenade (a walkway) that leads to an outdoor amphitheater. This amphitheater is between the old J. C. Penney building and the creek.
The Cascade Center is a great example of "adaptive reuse" – that's when old buildings are given a new purpose. Just like Station Square in Pittsburgh focuses on trains, the Cascade Center celebrates the early days of movies. Even though parts of the complex are still empty, new businesses are opening, and events are held inside and at the amphitheater. The center has also helped bring other businesses to downtown New Castle.
Even with its historical link to the Warner Bros. studio, the Cascade Center is not connected to Time Warner, the company that owns Warner Bros. Entertainment today. However, Cass Warner, the granddaughter of Harry Warner, did visit the complex just before it officially opened in 2006.
Shops and Businesses
At one point, the Cascade Center had three businesses, but they all closed in 2010 for reasons that aren't known. The complex was then put up for sale. However, the outdoor promenade and amphitheater are owned by the city and are still used for downtown events.
Main Street Clothiers and Custom Tailors, while located in the same building as the Cascade Center, is not officially part of it. This is because it only has an entrance from outside, not from inside the complex like the other businesses. Also, it was there before the Cascade Center was created.
In recent years, new businesses have started opening in the center again. Two Rivers Coffee Shop and The Commonwealth restaurant both opened in 2014.
