Red House Entertainment L.L.C. was chosen by the Peekskill Common Council on March 11 to take over the closed Paramount Center for the Arts.
The council unanimously selected Red House and will now negotiate a lease agreement.
Red House was the expected choice after a six-person review committee that included Peekskill Mayor Mary Foster and Councilwoman Kathleen Talbot unanimously selected the company at a Feb. 19 meeting as the best choice to run the theater, which closed in October 2012.
Tarrytown Music Hall and Paramount Phoenix, a group run by Peekskill restaurateur Arnold Paglia, were the other two finalists.
Red House was the only of the three bidders that would run the theater as a for-profit venture, with a nonprofit subsidiary attached. Red House was recently formed for the purpose of running the Paramount.
The company is owned by Garrison sound engineer Kurt Heitmann, who owns CP Communications, an Elmsford-based production equipment company. Red House and Peekskill expect to share ticket sale revenue, with the company estimating $1.8 million in revenue and $370,000 in its first year of running the theater.
Paramount Center for the Arts Inc., the nonprofit that ran the 1,024-seat theater, dissolved in November 2012 facing a $300,000 budget shortfall.
Red House”™s bid was praised for being high-tech and forward thinking with a solid operating structure and financial plan.
