FreeFall Theatre buys church buildings

BUYER: Freefall Properties LLC (principal: Kevin Lane), Pinellas Park

SELLER: Second Church of Christ, Scientist, St. Petersburg, Florida

PROPERTY: 6099 and 6001 Central Ave., St. Petersburg

PRICE: $1.5 million

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Title Security, St. Petersburg

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: The FreeFall Theatre purchased three Second Church of Christ, Scientist buildings on Central Avenue for $1.5 million.

Stretching a city block, the three-acre complex features a main church building, a Sunday school building and a Christian Science Reading Room. The buildings total 11,600 square feet.

The theater company already began to renovate the small Sunday school building to serve as a 150-person performance space without fixed seating. FreeFall Theatre executives hope to eventually convert the main sanctuary building into a 200-seat main stage theater. The theatre also expects to eventually convert the reading room building into an education center for acting training.

“We've been producing shows for a few years, bouncing around between Tampa and St. Pete, but we wanted a permanent home for the theater,” says Kevin Lane, executive director of the theater group. “We were looking for a year and a half, before we finally found this one and decided it would work. It's really an evolution of the company.”

The property offered the theatre several large buildings, a central St. Petersburg location and lots of parking, adds Lane. Kevin Yeager and Ann Walters of Osprey Real Estate Services represented the seller.