SHARON, Pa. – Standing inside a warehouse at 264 Dock St. in downtown Sharon, Pa., Allie’s Sweet Tooth owner Allie Adams recalls what the space looked like a year ago when she met with representatives of JCL Development.
The building, where Kopen Beverage Co., a beer distributor, operated until the late 1990s, will soon be the home of the bakery that Adams founded in 2009 and which has operated in downtown’s former Army-Navy Building for about two years.
“I compared it to a rain forest, because when you walked in, there were so many holes in the ceiling that when it was raining outside, it was actually raining in here, in this room that we’re standing in,” she recalls during an interview a few weeks before her planned move.
JCL had planned to use the building for offices, maintenance and warehousing, but switched gears after Adams met with Jim Landino, who co-owns JCL Development with his wife, Jen Krezeczowski, about the property.
“It was very selfless. They were just really interested in helping and getting this going,” she remarks.
“That was a complete restoration – pretty nice building, actually,” Landino says.
The 25,000-square-foot location, which Allie’s is leasing from JCL, will provide production and distribution space for a planned expansion of the wholesale operation, Adams says.
In addition to offering a new retail storefront, the building will provide shipping and receiving docks, and the space necessary to run multiple production lines at the same time to make high volumes of cookies. Equipment is gradually being moved into the space.
“I feel like it’s the next move for us,” Adams says. Her company is on the verge of national growth, and to commit to the volume her clients will demand, she needs space like this. The bakery will have to be certified “at a global level for food safety,” she adds.
“We have been talking with multiple distribution companies and different store chains, so to be able to commit to the volume that they would need for, say, 400 stores, we would have to have a space like this,” she says.
One of two rack ovens already has been installed. “She’s probably about 30 days out from operating there,” Landino says.
Adams says JCL “helped us immensely with implementing our vision and what we needed to make this the safest food space that we could build, because that’s our top priority, and we’ve been chipping away at the list ever since.”
Penn State Campus
Allie’s Sweet Tooth’s new location is one of several active projects that JCL Development has underway in Sharon. Those include 11 active projects in the downtown, excluding projects on the industrial side of the business, Krezeczowski says.
Some of the developer’s plans will be influenced by what happens with the Penn State Shenango campus, Landino says. Penn State and Pennsylvania officials are evaluating the letter of intent to purchase the campus submitted by JCL Development, Landino affirms.
These include Jolly River Apartments, located in a repurposed industrial building near the campus that originally was going to be targeted to PSU students, and The District Sports + Gaming in the former Carine & Co. building, which will feature pickleball, miniature golf, an arcade and a 10,000-square-foot, turfed training space.
“Per Kyle English at the Community Foundation, we own the donut, that’s the hole,” Landino remarks, referring to the PSU campus. “We own a tremendous amount of real estate around it.”
One of the challenges for the property is that the campus would have “an outrageously high” taxable real estate value once it ceases being part of the PSU system.
About half of the units at Jolly River Apartments – which originally was going to be targeted to PSU students – are leased, Krezeczowski reports. Tenants include young professionals, recent college graduates, remote workers, medical professionals and workers in the skilled trades. A few units are being marketed as furnished short-term rentals.
“We’ve got a few people from the Pittsburgh area, but they work remotely,” Lindsay Krezeczowski, JCL’s marketing director and Jen Krezeczowski’s sister-in-law, says.
“They like the proximity to Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but they can live in this small-town suburb.”
JLC also is repurposing 98 E. State St., where Evolve Training was located until moving to 341 Shenango Ave. last November, as 98 East. Evolve has experienced a “drastic increase” in its membership, Jen Krezeczowski says. The 16,000-square-foot space that it now occupies provides the fitness and wellness center with additional space and “more opportunity for different styles of training.”
Construction is underway on 98 East, where a “large anchor tenant” is in place for the second floor, and the first and third floors will have private office space and shared coworking, community desk-type workspaces, she says.
The first floor will have “more of a networking type of energetic feel, and the third floor will have a little more quiet space for people,” she continues. The building also will have amenities for content producers such as photographers, podcasters and people engaged in video production, including possibly a small recording studio.
Barring construction delays, JCL is targeting an opening by the end of 2026.
Retail, Recreation
JCL also is planning an August opening for The District, which will feature six indoor pickleball courts, as well as a pickleball simulator, Jen Krezeczowski says. It will also serve as a beta testing site for a court management software by Charlotte-based Rally Pickleball that will be able to call out-of-bounds foot faults and can be programmed to offer specific games.
“It’s a pretty unique software,” she says. “We’re trying to encapsulate everybody from the beginner to the expert and have something for everybody there.”
Another recreational venue project is Thornton Hall Bowling Lanes, which JCL is preparing to reopen Sept 1, when at least half of the lanes will be ready for use, Jen Krezeczowski reports. While the seating has been maintained, the scoring system has been modernized.
“We’re trying to keep some of the very cool original vintage elements to give it character,” she says. JCL was able to find the same pattern of carpet with different colorings to install, and large photos of the venue’s original owners will be mounted on the walls. Additionally, a grandson of the original owners is going to manage the bowling alley.
Plans also call for building a new downstairs restaurant space, she reports.
Recently, the owners of Valley Kitchen opened Tavola 234 Italian Kitchen and Lounge at 234 E. State St.
“That’s gone really well for them,” Landino says. When working to bring a business in, he says, JCL tries to make the process as turnkey as possible for the owners by taking the lead on designing and renovating the space. For Tavola 234, his wife “managed the whole thing, start to finish,” redoing the building’s kitchen space and patio and handling the décor as well as addressing sprinkler issues, among other elements.
Opening toward the end of September or early October, she will be partnering with former Pittsburgh Steeler-turned yogi Mike Adams to open a state-of-the-art wellness center in the former Community Action of Mercer County, she reports. In addition to yoga, offerings will include red light therapies, cryotherapy, compression therapy and “some of the most cutting-edge wellness equipment around,” she says.
A vacancy in the Applegate Building on Sharpsville Avenue will be created when Gifted is split into two separate operations. A coffee shop will open in a storefront adjoining the coworking space and Gifted’s retail business and tea shop will consolidate into a new arts café, where patrons can order an art or craft activity to work on. In all, projects could come online in about half a dozen downtown storefronts by the end of the year, she reports.
Sharon Tube
JCL also is awaiting word from the commonwealth on what can be done with the former Sharon tube property. The hot mill has been demolished, and the flooring and concrete structures at the site are being ground up and repurposed in other projects around town, Landino says.
Word on whether the property fulfills the requirements of the Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act, also commonly referred to as Act 2, is expected to come by the end of 2026.
“What could happen over there, depending on where we go next or how we pivot over there, that could become a very reasonable project to do something along the riverfront,” he says.
Making Its Case
Over the past few years, JCL has hosted tours of the various downtown properties it is redeveloping. “If we don’t get them inside the buildings, they can’t see the amount of activity happening,” Landino says.
“People like to see things in progress,” Jen Krezeczowski says.
“They want to feel like they’re a part of it. That gets buy-in from people,” Lindsey Krezeczowski adds. “We want to create excitement.”
Landino emphasizes that Sharon has spaces available for leasing. “We are trying to lead the charge to bring more and more retail, restaurants, boutiques, whatever, into town,” he says. Additionally, his company works with entrepreneurs to incubate new businesses.
“We’re doing everything from helping with the buildouts to helping with the branding,” Jen Krezeczowski adds. “I’m doing now what I wish somebody could have done for me.”
Landino acknowledges that some critics see what JCL is doing as gentrification. He and his wife see it as addressing blight and working to add population to Mercer County, as well as to provide more reasons for traffic now driving through Sharon to stop in the city.
“We need to add more working citizens, We need to get more working people walking around town with money in their pocket interested in being a part of what we think is a rebirth,” he says.
His wife sees it as trying to bring balance to the community. “It’s not about getting rid of anybody,” she says.
Landino points out that the money JCL is spending to redevelop real estate is not necessarily money well spent. About $5.5 million was present on the Jolley apartments and it was appraised at $3.5 million.
“If anybody is wondering if this is a really solid business idea, the answer is it really is not,” he remarks. “This is a human-interest deal. We are interested very much in building a community.”
Pictured at top: Jen Krezeczowski, co-owner of JCL Development, and Lindsey Krezeczowski, marketing director, JCL Development, inside Jen’s Sharon, Pa., store, Gifted.
