Easing the ‘eye-sore’
MONESSEN – A long-vacant and rundown former department store in Monessen is being converted into an apartment building.
A coalition of community development corporations known as Mon Valley Initiative is overseeing the nearly $1.8 million project, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, initiative news releases indicate.
The project was cited Monday by Monessen Councilwoman Patricia Bukowski as an example of a positive development in the financially strapped city in Westmoreland County.
“I think it’s going to be really beautiful,” Bukowski said Friday.
She said the Homestead-based initiative has a solid track record of improving real estate in the region.
Eisenberg’s, which closed 19 years ago, was at one time the place to shop for new clothing. The building sat vacant since then, the initiative said, to the point where it had developed many broken windows and deteriorating exterior walls.
“That building and the one next to it are kind of eyesores,” Bukowski said.
She said Eisenberg’s sold fine clothing and made an attempt to move to a mall, but it didn’t last.
The initiative already has begun some site work on the three-story brick building at Schoonmaker and Fourth streets, with plans to create 13 mixed-income apartments in the building, the group’s news release stated.
The initiative is seeking bids from contractors who are interested in the project, with sealed bids due at 2 p.m. June 24. For information, call Rick Dunn at the initiative at 412-464-4000, extension 4002.