Former Fort Pitt Brewery in Jeannette among dozen of properties bought by land bank

Westmoreland County’s Land Bank purchased a dozen tax delinquent properties Monday, including a former brewery building in west Jeannette that officials long have described as blighted and targeted for removal.

The county’s tax office sold 27 properties at Monday’s judicial sale and earned more than $199,600. Officials put 49 parcels on the sale list after a judge stripped each property of existing liens and tax obligations in an effort to facilitate deals.

“These are the kinds of properties that not only hold neighborhoods back, but communities back. This is what the land bank is designed to do,” said Brian Lawrence, executive director of Westmoreland County’s Redevelopment Authority and Land Bank.

The 12 properties purchased by the land bank, six in New Kensington, three in Vandergrift and one each in Arnold, Lower Burrell and West Jeannette, will be added to the agency’s inventory of 43 sites that are being held for redevelopment.

The land bank paid minimum prices set by the tax office to cover any outstanding costs and did not face opposing bids.

The former Fort Pitt Brewery, the multi-story dilapidated red-brick building on Penn Avenue and Clay Avenue Extension, had more than $330,000 in arrears accumulated since 2005. The land bank paid $1,876.

Lawrence said early estimates suggested it could cost about $1 million to demolish the building.

Related:

• 'Blight monster' brewery site in West Jeannette to be torn down
• Jeannette officials aim to stop trespassers at crumbling former brewery
• Blighted old brewery complex in Jeannette the 'last big piece' to city's rebuild

Westmoreland’s land bank has become a central part of the county’s redevelopment effort in recent years. It purchased the former Monsour Medical Center property in 2017 and financed a $2 million demolition project to remove the blighted, vacant hospital that sat empty for more than a decade. The property eventually was sold to private developers but remains vacant.

Lawrence said the land bank is expected to increase its purchases as part of a $10.4 million program paid for by a portion of the county’s American Rescue Plan funds.

The land bank spent a total of $21,085 for 12 properties Monday.

The agency was created by county commissioners in 2014 and over the last eight years has sold off or developed more than 130 formerly blighted properties to private owners and developers, converted to green space or rehabilitated by the agency, Lawrence said.

Monday’s judicial sale saw 15 other properties purchased by private entities, including a home in Penn Township that sold for $40,000, the highest sale price of the day.

It was the third public auction held by the tax office this year. Two more are scheduled for 2022, one each in November and December.

The county held two judicial sales in 2021.

“There’s been a backlog, so we’re trying to do more of them,” O’Brien said.

The county’s annual upset sale — for properties with taxes unpaid for more than two years — is scheduled for Sept. 12 at the courthouse. Bidders will have to pay any liens or tax burdens on those properties, which number in the thousands.