As Shenango Valley companies work to attract new workers, one of the challenges these prospective employees face is finding a desirable place to live.
It’s an issue Penn-Northwest Development Corp. in Hermitage, Pa., works to address.
“We’re looking for market-rate, attainable housing that’s going to attract young professionals and allow people that are getting up in years to maybe downsize into something nice to keep them in the area,” says Rod Wilt, Penn-Northwest executive director.
He adds the agency isn’t pursuing more “affordable or subsidized housing in Mercer County.” That’s not the focus of Penn-Northwest’s comprehensive housing development strategy, Wilt explains.
The market will determine the price point.
“But I can tell you that any house that comes on the market at $300,000 to $500,000 stays on the market for hours, not days or weeks,” he says. “The other thing we do not have at all in Mercer County is townhouse development.”
Other communities that have transformed their housing started with townhouse-style development, located near model single-family homes. Developers hope townhouse buyers eventually become single-family home buyers, Wilt explains.
It’s an issue Sara McCauley, a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway in Hermitage, sees too.
“We have lots of buyers and we have very, very low inventory,” she says, especially for townhouses, condominiums and what she terms “forever homes.”
McCauley points to a home that came on the market a few weeks ago at a $325,000 asking price. It was in a good neighborhood and didn’t need much work. But it wasn’t huge.
“It had three offers within two days,” she says. “And my people paid $20,000 over [the asking price].”
The clients she sees who are looking for those types of homes are young families who want to move into something larger and stay there as their children grow up.
That includes people returning to the area in response to Penn-Northwest’s efforts at touting the region’s affordability, she says, as well as some who live in other states, work remotely and want to relocate to a more affordable area.
Apartment Living
JCL Development is working to fill the housing needs of young professionals in the region. The company is nearing completion of a 21-unit apartment building in the former Jolley Industrial Supply Co. building on Agate Way in downtown Sharon.
Jim Landino, who owns JCL with his wife, Jen Krezeczowski, envisions median wage earners as tenants. Rent ranges from about $1,300 for a one-bedroom to $1,600 for two. He expects to begin renting the apartments in September.
“Anybody coming new to the area that might not want to buy a house right away” may be a prospective tenant, Landino says. “Our mission is different than what most people think it should be. We’re interested in repopulating Mercer County.”
People who move to the area need places to live and while one of Landino’s companies, JCL Energy, has hired several young people, finding homes is their biggest challenge.
“Housing stock is limited, and quality housing stock is really limited,” he says.
The apartment building is one of about 60 projects under development by JCL. Three of those projects in Sharon focus on quality of life, Landino points out.
He’s developing an indoor pickleball center a block from the apartment building and his daughter is moving her gym next door.
“If you want to move into downtown Sharon and live here, you could walk
to the gym, you could walk to pickleball, you could walk to food,” Landino
says.
While people are moving to the Shenango Valley to work at its companies, there isn’t enough desirable housing for them to live in. And he says that extends to apartments.
“If you look around, there’s nothing that looks like a high-quality, brand new apartment complex in our area,” Landino says. He believes costs involved have deterred people from making the investment.
Landino also developed eight apartment units in the Forker Building a few years ago, which rented quickly. He calls the apartments in the Armory building, another JCL project, boutique-style living. Both buildings are in Sharon, where Landino points to the Shenango River as an asset.
He describes the units in the former Jolley building as spacious with high-quality windows and cabinetry. He credits Krezeczowski, his wife, for the design.
Landino points out that apartments his company is creating in downtown Sharon take advantage of the area’s walkability and bikeability – both features that appeal to young people.
“We’re absolutely trying to dial in the 20- to 30-year-olds – absolutely and literally,” he says. “If we could fill this up with that group in particular, we’d be delighted.”
Homebuyers
When it comes to buying a home, Wilt, the Penn-Northwest executive director, believes a couple with each person earning $50,000 annually can afford a $300,000 home.
“There’s enough old housing stock that can be purchased and renovated, but a lot of our buyers don’t have the expertise,” he says. “We don’t have the contractors that are in that game.”
It’s too hard for them to make money just doing renovation projects, so Mercer County needs new housing development.
Single-story developments that attract active, recently retired or soon to retire people, offering shared amenities, a clubhouse and pool, is another type of housing the county lacks, he says.
“It doesn’t take much of a drive to figure out what other communities have that we don’t have,” Wilt adds.
While there are a few new homes under construction scattered around the county, there hasn’t been a concerted effort to develop parcels of housing where a developer builds a model home or two and uses them to sell additional homes, he says.
“The other thing I’m not real interested in are people that want to buy a piece of land and sell lots, because there’s just not enough home builders around” and construction loans prove difficult to secure, Wilt continues.
“The model that works is a developer comes in, develops a model and begins to sell off the models,” he says. “And you pick your lot, and you build the style of home that the developer has outlined for that development.”
To encourage that, Penn-Northwest personnel are working with communities to determine if they want new housing development.
“One of the communities that’s really stepped up is Hermitage,” Wilt says.
That city controls some of the property surrounding LindenPointe and is interested in it being developed into housing.
And Wilt, outside of his Penn-Northwest role, is working with a developer to bring new apartments to downtown Greenville.
“It starts with the community and what the township, what the municipality, is interested in,” he says. “Once we know that, then we know, from a planning commission standpoint, the type of housing that they’re looking for… that they would approve in certain parts of their community.”
Then the agency can determine which developers are interested in pursuing development in those areas, the executive director adds.
Husband and wife Jim Landino and Jen Krezeczowski, owners of JCL Development in Sharon, Pa., are developing the former Jolley Industrial Supply Co. into a 21-unit apartment building.