Norristown Shelves Plans To Become Hollywood East

INQUIRER: Perhaps those visions of Hollywood glitz for humble Norristown were unduly rosy, like most showbiz dreams. For now, the hyped plan to revive the hard-bitten Montgomery County seat with one of the largest movie studios on the East Coast is off the table, replaced by the more pragmatic construction of office space for a janitorial concern and a Pathmark. The latter, aimed at completion early next year, would be the municipality’s first new full-service supermarket in a generation. It won’t be the glamorous, California-esque 100,000 square feet of studio space talked up in 2007 as a magnet for feature films and even celebrity gawking. Developer Charles Gallub said yesterday that the poor economy and the state government’s budget-crunching trim of the film tax credit precluded, for the moment, building a movie studio in a faded shopping center on Norristown’s eastern edge. MORE