Penningtons hope to bring ‘Culture, Music & Arts’ to Corbin

By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor

It started as an ice plant. Then it was home to a mining equipment provider... later a trucking company... then the Bounce Factory. Now the 11,000-square-foot building, located just outside city limits on South Main Street in Corbin, is home to the CMA (Culture, Music & Arts) Centre.

David Pennington, who works at the nearby Pennington Block Company, has turned the old ice plant owned by his family into a place where all things creative can take place — dancing, drama, arts and more.

The ice plant was constructed between 1927-1929 by Mr. T. Elmer Mahan, David said, and supplied ice for train cars shipping beef or vegetables along the tracks behind the property.

“He (Mahan) was an attorney down in Williamsburg, he’s synonymous with University of the Cumberlands and many of their projects there, and he was one of the founding members of Southeast Kentucky Hospital, which became Baptist Regional Medical Center,” he said. “He was also vice president of Gatliff Coal Company, which later became TECO Coal.”

Mahan was also once named lay person of the year by the Kentucky Baptist Convention, David said.

“He was just a tremendous philanthropist, and I just wanted to take this and build on what he had done,” said David, himself a former Corbin city commissioner.

“My father bought it from Mr. Mahan back in 1977,” David said. “... The building was a bit dilapidated and worn and Mr. Mahan was getting up in years, and his wife told him he should sell it to my father because ‘he had an honest face.’”

The 11,000 square foot building, located just outside city limits on South Main Street in Corbin, underwent a remodel in the 1970s before housing several different companies. It was last home to the Bounce Factory, which provided a space for children’s parties with indoor inflatables.

After the Bounce Factory closed, David sandblasted the interior walls to expose the original brick and removed the drop ceilings.

During October, the Penningtons transformed the space into a haunted house called the Death Factory. It drew more than 1,500 visitors and got the couple thinking — if that many will come for a haunted house, what else could this space be?

“When we did the haunted house, my husband said, ‘we have this building, it’s just sitting here and decaying, it really has personality, I just hate to see it sit here,’” said David’s wife Pam Pennington.

In just a few weeks, David and Pam painted many of the rooms, brought in tables, chairs and booths from an old restaurant, created wall art from old album covers, and even installed a disco ball. A loft-style space of about 1,280 square feet is designed to host events from teen parties to poetry readings, with an additional lounge area furnished with sofas and TVs.

“Last Saturday night we had a teen club, which my niece named it The Mix, and we had 55 young adults,” David said. “We had a DJ instead of a band, and it was no problems — no breaking out of any fights, no roughing, just a great bunch of individuals.”

Tonight, CMA Centre will host the Lonesome Coal Miners Dance, and adults’ night with karaoke, dance music, and free admission for ladies.

But the Penningtons hope to do more — they look to feature local bands, choirs, bluegrass musicians, and even plays in the space.

“Economic conditions like they are, there’s a lot of vacant buildings in Corbin,” David said. “We just want to take the uniqueness of this building and provide some type of place for events. I don’t want it to be known as a teen dance club; I don’t want it to be known as an adult dance club — I want it to be known as an arts center.”

The largest space in the building — a 2,4000 brick storage space with a 62-foot-high ceiling — is still a blank canvas. David has discussed turning the space into a black box theater.

“We just feel like it’s an opportunity for Corbin and our immediate area to be able to hopefully create some type of arts culture — whether it’s music, whether it’s pottery, whether it’s poetry... All those things are possibilities here,” David said.

Because the building contains three separate, large rooms, parts of it could be rented out by dance groups, arts instructors or for private parties.

“I would love for us to have a definite arts center where we could have plays, where our kids are exposed to culture, where they can do drama and choir,” Pam added.

A Web site at www.cmacentreky.com is currently under construction and will give information on upcoming events. If you have an idea for an event or would like information on renting the CMA Centre, call Pam Pennington at 606-627-1441.

Text Only