Historic First United Presbyterian Church in Braddock being converted to apartments
BRADDOCK (KDKA) - A new housing development in Braddock broke ground today.
This new affordable housing development will be for mixed-income households.
A church that's over 100 years old and a National Historic Landmark is about to be reborn and become home to dozens of people.
On Friday morning, community groups and organizations, along with city and county officials, met in Braddock to break ground on new affordable housing units. These units are part of the Mon Valley Initiative's $2.9 million residential development project that is converting the historic First United Presbyterian Church, built in 1893, into eight units for mixed-income housing.
Laura Zinski, the CEO of the Mon Valley Initiative, says that it's awesome to see places like this get a complete makeover.
"It's amazing to see the transformation and it's amazing to see all the partners come together around a project because this is not a small thing," she said.
Indeed, this project took years to come to fruition with permits and financing, but after today, construction on these one and two-bedroom units will hopefully be completed sometime in the fall of 2024.
Then while the Mon Valley Initiative is looking forward to this project's completion, they are also looking ahead to more renovations and rehabs like this throughout the area in the future.
"What can be preserved, let's preserve, what can't be, let's put in something new like there are in other communities," Zinski said. "it's a great location and it needs to be preserved and the people who have lived here through the tough times need to be honored and new people need to be invited in."
Now again, this church is a national historic landmark, and it is going to maintain its National Historic Landmark status, but that means they have to keep both the chandler and the organ, which that means that those two are going to be in the middle of somebody's apartment!
Not too shabby if you ask me.