NORWAY — The town has been awarded a $400,000 matching grant to restore six first-floor storefronts in the 1894 Opera House on Main Street.

The notification was received Wednesday by Town Manager David Holt in a letter from Deborah Johnson, deputy director of the state’s Office of Community Development. Norway was one of 32 applicants for a portion of the $3.5 million available.

“I am thrilled that the town of Norway has been selected to receive funding through the Communities for Maine’s Future Bond Program that will continue the town’s efforts to save the Norway Opera House building,” Holt said in a statement issued Wednesday morning.

“The Opera House is a reminder of Norway’s history and a key to the future of our Main Street,” he said.

He said work on the building would include bringing the ground floor and basement up to code.

“The hope here is that if the building is economically viable, it will not be so apt to fall into disrepair again,” Holt said. “The plan is to work with the Norway Opera House Corp. to use historic tax credits in partnership with Norway Savings Bank to further stretch the (grant) dollars.”

The corporation will be asked to take over ownership of the building.

Dennis Gray of the Norway Opera House Corp. said the corporation has been in preliminary discussions with Norway Savings Bank about the $400,000 match. If a deal is struck, most of that money would be repaid with the historic preservation tax credit, amounting to $275,000 over the next four years. The rest of the money would be repaid through renting the storefronts, he said.

The Norway Opera House Corp. has played a “pivotal” role in saving the building by writing and receiving grants from the Stephen King, Davis Family and Maine Community foundations and by undertaking fundraising efforts, Gray said.

Holt said credit for the project’s success, so far, has to “first and foremost” go to Norway residents Bea and Bill Damon who contributed $200,000 to pay owner Barry Mazzaglia of Bitim Enterprises of Londonderry, N.H., the court-ordered $180,000 settlement price.

Holt also praised the Board of Selectmen for their “courage and decisiveness” and voters who were “ultimately responsible for saving the building.”

The three-story brick building is the centerpiece of the downtown historic district and is on the list of Maine’s Most Endangered Historic Properties. The building and its imposing clock tower were built in 1894 by the Norway Building Association and bought by the town in 1920.

Concerts, minstrel shows, ballroom dances, plays, movies, high school graduations and town meetings were held on the upper floors and small businesses operated on the first. It had a succession of private owners after the town sold it in the mid-1970s. The upper floors have been unused for about 30 years. The storefronts have not been occupied since the roof partially collapsed in September 2007 under the weight of water.

The resulting damage and the owner’s failure to adequately stabilize the building led the town to take it by eminent domain last year because it was deemed a public safety hazard.

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