Former 'Dance Moms' studio wants to relocate to Carbone's building in Unity Township

Appolonia Leake is hoping to move her dance studio from Penn Hills to a portion of the former Carbone’s Restaurant in Crabtree if the Unity Township supervisors approve.

Lou Demosky, Leake’s mother and business manager for the studio, said they’d been looking to make a move for about nine months to a location closer to their Greensburg home when they spotted a sign offering space for lease in the Italian restaurant that closed last July.

“The space is nice and big,” said Demosky. “It’s really hard to find a space like this.”

Jerome DeFabo, a partner in DeFabo Properties, which owns the building, and a member of the family that operates Crabtree’s remaining Italian restaurant — nearby Rizzo’s Malabar Inn — told the supervisors at a Tuesday hearing that the dance studio would occupy 6,000 square feet of the roughly 15,500-square-foot building.

He said the rest of the building would continue to be used for catering and as a warehouse supporting Rizzo’s operations.

Township Solicitor Gary Falatovich said conditional-use approval by the supervisors is required because the building, located in a “residential village” zone, would change from a single use to a mixed use. He said the 153-space parking lot provides about three times the minimum off-street parking required by township regulations.

The supervisors are expected to vote on the conditional use at their regular June 13 meeting.

Demosky said her daughter, who guides a 23-member dance competition team and 30 recreational dance students, hopes to grow her clientele with the proposed move to Crabtree and a name change to Apple’s Dance Lab. She noted the village is at a point where three local school districts — Greensburg Salem, Greater Latrobe and Hempfield Area — meet.

A graduate of Greensburg Salem High School and Saint Vincent College, Leake, 25, established Appolonia Leake Dance Company about three years ago.

She took over operation of the Penn Hills studio from Abby Lee Miller, who has been featured in the “Dance Moms” reality TV show and ran a studio at the location until mid-2016. Miller spent eight months in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud and later was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Leake, who trained briefly under Miller, has been dancing most of her life and performed in Germany as a soloist U.S. Olympics competitor.

But she was born with multidirectional instability, which caused joint, muscle and shoulder problems that led to multiple surgeries and prompted her to focus on dance instruction.

Some of her students have appeared on reality shows including “America’s Got Talent” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”