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Demolition project intended to spur sale of former victims shelter in Tarentum | TribLIVE.com
Valley News Dispatch

Demolition project intended to spur sale of former victims shelter in Tarentum

Brian C. Rittmeyer
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Steven Adams | Tribune-Review
DRZ Excavating of Harrison on Thursday razed a building that once housed the Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s offices on East Sixth Avenue in Tarentum.
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Brian C. Rittmeyer | Tribune-Review
Dave Zembrzuski, owner of DRZ Excavating of Harrison, tears down a building that once housed the Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s offices on East Sixth Avenue in Tarentum on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019. The building was leveled by the end of the day and the rubble cleanup is expected to take three or four days.
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Brian C. Rittmeyer | Tribune-Review
The front of the Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s former office building on East Sixth Avenue in Tarentum on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019. Demolition of the building started at the back. The building was leveled by the end of the day and the rubble cleanup is expected to take three or four days.
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Brian C. Rittmeyer | Tribune-Review
The Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s former domestic violence shelter on East Sixth Avenue in Tarentum on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019. Center officials hope that tearing down its former office building next door will improve prospects for its sale.
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Steven Adams | Tribune-Review
DRZ Excavating of Harrison on Thursday razed a building that once housed the Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s offices on East Sixth Avenue in Tarentum.

A Tarentum domestic violence shelter hopes that tearing down one of its buildings will help it sell another.

The dilapidation of a building that once housed the Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center’s offices at 415 E. Sixth Ave. has hindered the center’s efforts to sell its former shelter building next to it at 413 E. Sixth, according to the organization’s executive director, Michelle Gibb.

Gibb called the former office building an “albatross.”

“I’m sure the neighbors will be sort of happy” the building is being torn down, Gibb said. “It will make a nice green space for Tarentum.”

DRZ Excavating, of Harrison, started demolition work Thursday. The building was reduced to a heaping pile of rubble by the end of the day.

Owner Dave Zembrzuski said cleanup of the debris would take three or four days.

The center bought both buildings at the same time in 1989, according to Allegheny County real estate records.

The HOPE Center had used the former office building until about 10 years ago.

After the shelter was moved about 20 months ago, Gibb said the organization began trying to sell both buildings together. While there was interest in the former shelter building, the former office building’s condition scared away potential buyers, Gibb said.

The center’s board “decided to go ahead and spend money to have it torn down to make the old shelter more marketable for sale,” Gibb said.

The former shelter building and the vacant lot will be for sale through Czekalski Real Estate, Gibb said.

Proceeds from the sale will go toward funding the center’s operations, Gibb said.

Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.

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