Once again, Senator Theatre in Baltimore to avoid foreclosure

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Feb 21, 2007 by Louis Llovio

The Senator Theatre in Baltimore has been saved. For now.

Barring a dramatic turn worthy of a Hollywood feature, owner Tom Kiefaber has raised the money needed to keep the theater off the auction block.

Kiefaber said Tuesday evening that he would pay off the $109,828.64 debt to 1st Mariner Bank using a combination of donations totaling about XXXXXX and a bridge loan to cover the balance.

This brings to an end two nerve-wracking weeks for the movie house owner, who faced the prospect of a foreclosure auction at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday if the money had not been raised.

This was not the first - or even second - time Kiefaber had found himself in this position. In 2000 and 1993 he was able to stave off foreclosure - thanks to public help.

While he may now breathe a sigh of relief, Kiefaber still has a $1.2 million mortgage that he must pay on the Senator.

He called this latest close call with insolvency a "wake-up call."

"I didn't really realize how many people out there cared," he said. In the future, he said, the theater will be proactive in its fundraising to avoid the situation it found itself in.

As the fundraising effort came to a close Tuesday, Kiefaber was not willing to discuss any solid plans for keeping the 68-year old Senator solvent. All he would say was that he hoped the attention, from both the media and the public, would continue once the deadline passed.

"We see a viable earning future for the theater and have plans and ideas to make this work," he said.

Kiefaber blamed his evasiveness and reluctance to discuss any solid plans to "complexities that are hollow sounding and can lead to large misunderstandings."

He would only say there would be town hall meetings to discuss the theater's future. He also declined to say where he obtained the bridge loan.

Across York Road, Catherine Evans, president of the Belvedere Improvement Association, said she was relieved to hear the news.

Evans called the Senator "the neighborhood theater" for those living in the developments surrounding the theater and Belvedere Square.

She said she believes that, despite past flirtations with "disaster," the theater will see a reawakening. The alternative, she said, is not an option.

"We don't want to see [the Senator] owned and managed by someone who is not community minded," she said.

The road to avoiding the auction was tortuous and almost came to a screeching halt last week.

Kiefaber was told originally that the debt was $93,000, but late last week 1st Mariner Bank raised the amount by nearly $17,000. The increase was due to legal fees associated with the sale.

According to Seth Rothenberg, an attorney with Baltimore's Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander LLC, who specializes in foreclosures, lenders are allowed to charge reasonable fees in foreclosure cases. The fees go mostly toward advertising the sale, which is mandated by law.

In the Senator's case, the fees might have been a bit higher because 1st Mariner advertised the sale in several larger papers, including The Wall Street Journal.

Had the theater been sold at auction, Kiefaber might have had recourse to contest the additional fees before the court had ratified the sale, Rothenberg said.

Whether those fees were legal or not would have been up to the discretion of a judge.

Several calls to 1st Mariner were not returned Monday and Tuesday.

The Senator opened in Northeast Baltimore in 1939. Kiefaber has owned the theatre since 1989.