Less than a year after its grand opening, Prineville’s only first-run movie theater is back on the market for nearly $1.5 million.

Oniko and Ali Mehrabi purchased the 165-seat Pine Theater, built in 1938, in 2006 and immediately went to work restoring the building. Since then, they haven’t stopped working. Ali Mehrabi takes the tickets, mans the concessions and then runs upstairs to start the projector.

When the couple found out that Oniko was ill, suffering from health conditions she declined to detail, they decided it was time to invest less time in the theater and instead spend more time together and with their 4-year-old son.

“I would love to hold onto it for the rest of our lives,” Ali Mehrabi said of the theater. “But family comes first. It’s one of those things where we want to see it go into the hands of people who care about it as much as we do.”

The couple said they aren’t in a hurry to sell the building and are determined to find the right buyers who will keep the theater open.

“It will stay a theater,” Oniko Mehrabi said. “It will continue to grow and serve the community. It’s a community theater.”

Crook County High School student Talea Struck, 16, who has seen a handful of movies at the Pine Theater, said she appreciates its cleanliness and affordable ticket prices.

“The teenagers in Prineville already don’t have a lot to do,” she said. “And so if they took the theater away, there would be even less to do. … More people would get in trouble.”

Kaylie Jurgens, also 16 and a junior at Crook County High School, said the theater has provided a place to go with friends.

“And it’s nice we don’t have to go all the way to Bend to go to a movie theater,” she said.

Crook County Judge Scott Cooper agreed the theater has been a real asset to the community.

“Ideally, someone in the community will step up and see it as a business opportunity,” he said, about buying the theater.

Cooper said the theater has given new life to Prineville’s downtown.

The 6,400-square-foot building sat empty for decades before the Mehrabi family bought it. The two owners, who moved to Prineville from Boring, have kept ticket prices at $6 to make it affordable for the community. The theater also has an extra room for events and fundraisers. The Mehrabis also have applied for a license to sell beer and wine.

“We’re not a nonprofit, but we consider ourselves a community theater,” Oniko Mehrabi said. “The theater has been here a lot longer than we have, and it will stay here forever.”

The Mehrabis plan to stay in the community, perhaps eventually opening a smaller, more manageable business, such as a cafe.

“We’re not in a rush to sell it,” Oniko Mehrabi said. “It makes money, and we live on that money. But if we can sell it to the right person tomorrow, yeah we would go for it.”