It’s back to their roots for Libby and Ted Fenster, McKeesport natives who are among the first residents to move into the four-story, 50-unit Grand View Senior Residences in Irwin.
“I love it here. Everything is just top of the line,” said Libby Fenster, who moved into the Westmoreland County Housing Authority’s apartment building off Laurel Avenue on Tuesday and was in the process of unpacking their life’s belongings.
The primary reason for returning to Southwestern Pennsylvania was to be close to their children and grandchildren, said Libby Fenster, who moved out of the area after they lost their jobs when U.S. Steel Corp.’s National Tube Works shut down in McKeesport in 1981. Two of their daughters live in North Huntingdon and one is in McKeesport, she said.
Not only are they close to family, but close to shopping and stores, unlike their home in rural Linesville in Crawford County, Libby Fenster said.
“It’s all the convenience you can think of,” Libby Fenster said.
Tenants started to move into the building for senior citizens in late July and the Fensters live in one of the eight apartments currently occupied, said Lynn Wackenhuth, tax credit compliance officer for the housing authority. Some interior finishing work and exterior work is not yet completed in a building with a community room, laundry facilities on each floor, security entrance and handicapped-accessible apartments.
“We hope to be fully leased by the end of October,” Wackenhuth said.
With prospective residents having to end leases at rental properties or sell their homes, Wackenhuth said they expect the moving-in process will continue over the next few months.
The Fensters were among those tenants who were trying to sell their home by the time the building was available for occupancy.
Housing authority officials last year predicted there would be a heavy demand for housing in the $14 million building and their prediction came true. The authority has a waiting list of 150 applications from people who want to live in the building that is for income-eligible residents, Wackenhuth said. The authority still is going through the applications, but the waiting list could extend for a few years, she said.
The housing authority has seen Grand View Senior Residences and its other properties for senior citizens as a way of serving that population age 65 and older, which the U.S. Census Bureau said represented close to 25% of all county residents in 2021. Senior citizens get access to good, affordable housing, which then frees up houses for a younger population the county is trying to attract to bolster the economy.
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“We could fill three or more buildings,” Wackenhuth said.
The Fensters jumped at the chance to live at Grand View, applying 15 months ago to live in the facility, Libby Fenster said.
The first tenant to move into the building, Jeannette native Margie Davis, said she and her husband, Jim, came from Port Orange, Fla., where they had lived for 50 years.
“We’re getting old and we wanted to be close to family … in Irwin, Jeannette and Greensburg,” Margie Davis said.
Although they were living along the Florida coast, Davis said she learned the housing authority was constructing a building for seniors from a friend who lives in a housing authority building, South Greengate Commons, that opened in 2013 along South Greengate Road in Hempfield.
Davis offered a practical, if not emotional, reason for applying for a place to live back home.
“We both wanted to be alive when we made the decision,” said Margie Davis, 84, whose husband is 87.
While the demand to live in Grand View is overwhelming, the housing authority’s decision to build the apartment building in Irwin was not greeted by approval by all a few years ago. A group of North Huntingdon residents had opposed the housing authority’s decision to build on part of a 17-acre parcel across from the Norwin Public Library on Caruthers Lane. A contingent of the residents went to government meetings in both Irwin and North Huntingdon to oppose the project, but Irwin Borough approved it in 2022 and the North Huntingdon commissioners granted approval for a 1,300-foot-long access road leading off Laurel Avenue and into the building.
The housing authority has plans to build about 38 patio homes in the North Huntingdon portion of its property, but has yet to announce when that project might begin.
Joe Napsha is a TribLive reporter covering Irwin, North Huntingdon and the Norwin School District. He also writes about business issues. He grew up on Neville Island and has worked at the Trib since the early 1980s. He can be reached at jnapsha@triblive.com.