1901 Church

While design work has been underway, the columba theatre project has reopened this former irish church building and is offering it as a rough space for theatre companies to use for rehearsals, auditions, workshops, classes and performances. This has been made possible through 35,000 in operating support grants from the colcom foundation of pittsburgh. To date, theatre companies have performed a "peaky blinders" interpretation of "macbeth,- and "lion in winter." a community production of "fiddler on the roof" used columba for rehearsal space, and an area band, "endless mike and the beagle club," recording an album in columba. A rock artist, jasmine cain also has performed holiday shows there. Now plans are in the works to use columba as an informal theatre workshop by actors, directors and playwrights; and performances on the schedule for 2025 include "number the stars,- and "dark of the moon."

Through a grant of 69,000 from the katherine mabis mckenna foundation of latrobe, pa, 1901 church will be able to replace a troublesome and unreliable heating plant in its grand halle on broad street. The grant will enable the installation of two new burnham steam max boilers of 550,000 btus each between the heating seasons of 2025. The existing boilers date to the 1980s and have been costing 1901 church thousands of dollars annually in maintenance and servicing costs - fixes that serve only to keep the system operating marginally but are unable to address the root issues of the obsolete system. The new gas-fired burnham system not only will be reliable but will be significantly less costly to operate given their greater energy efficiency.