Edelen Renewables pavilion hosts movie night in downtown Hazard

Children were already using the Edelen Renewables pavilion in downtown Hazard as a gathering place, with photos shared by Adam Edelen showing local kids watching The Sandlot under the new space. For a project tied to solar development and office space, the movie night gave Hazard families something concrete to see and use in the middle of downtown.

The pavilion sits at 600 Main St. in Hazard, the company’s first eastern Kentucky office, and Edelen Renewables celebrated a grand opening there on Dec. 7. Company and city messaging have framed the site as part of downtown revitalization in Hazard, the Queen City of the Mountains, while the company says its work is meant to bring the “promise of renewable energy” and jobs to underserved communities.

Edelen has also said Perry County is next in line for community engagement, although no public site details, timelines or dollar figures have been released. That leaves the downtown pavilion as one of the few visible examples residents can point to right now, a place where a corporate project briefly became a neighborhood asset rather than just a name on a sign.

The choice of The Sandlot, first released in 1993, fit that setting well. The film’s baseball nostalgia gave parents and children an easy, familiar reason to come together, and it showed how a new downtown space can be measured less by branding than by whether local families actually show up and stay awhile.

Edelen Renewables has described its broader mission as developing socially impactful solar projects that support community revitalization and economic growth. The company has also been linked to a large Martin County solar project described as covering 1,200 acres with more than 214,000 solar panels, underscoring that the Hazard office is part of a wider eastern Kentucky push even as its downtown pavilion begins to take on a more immediate civic role.