Demolition begins in downtown Greensburg
Sep. 5—With the push and pull of a 25-foot claw attached to heavy equipment stationed on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Greensburg, workers started the laborious task of bringing down a dilapidated former restaurant building Sunday morning.
The three-story building that once housed the former Derby's Delicatessen but has been vacant for a decade or more was expected to be a pile of rubble by late afternoon.
"The existing owner of this delinquent property assured the city he will fix it up, but that hasn't happened. These are the kinds of things that explain blight in our area," said Brian Lawrence, executive director of the Westmoreland County Redevelopment Authority, which is overseeing the demolition.
The building, at 127 S. Pennsylvania Ave., according to property records, is owned by Merril LLC of Beverly Hills, Calif. Lawrence said officials believe the company name was changed as a tactic to avoid legal responsibility for years of owed property taxes and its deteriorating condition.
Calls to the property owner went unanswered Sunday.
The property is nearly $50,000 in arrears and failed to sell at previous tax sales, Lawrence said.
Greensburg city officials obtained a lien on the property this spring and demanded the structure's owner repair or raze it by April 23.
Instead, it continued to fall into disrepair and the roof partially caved in in May, after which the city cordoned off the area in front of the structure and out onto Pennsylvania Avenue over fears it would further collapse as legal action was under way allow for the building to to be demolished.
Work crews closed off the 100 block of South Pennsylvania Avenue on Sunday morning to traffic — although at least one of the businesses, Bortz Hardware, remained open to customers.
Jadell Minniefield, owner of the West Mifflin-based company hired to demolish the building, said workers will pull down the front of the structure to assess the damage.
"It will be a controlled fall, and we'll try to make everything come inside on itself," Minniefield said.
It's expected to take several days to remove the debris.
The county's demolition fund, paid for from fees applied to all property record filings, will cover more than half of the $128,000 cost to raze the building. The city will pay $53,000 as its share of the demolition, Lawrence said.
The county will use its demolition fund to knock down 11 blighted properties in 2021. It removed 13 blighted properties last year.
Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Rich at 724-830-6293, rcholodofsky@triblive.com or via Twitter .
