Housing authority to move ahead with office building project
The Fayette County Housing Authority will move forward with plans to construct an office building along East Main Street in Uniontown.
Authority members agreed Thursday to begin negotiations with potential tenants and preliminary designs of the building, despite not learning if the Social Security Administration (SSA) or the Government Services Administration (GSA) will relocate the local Social Security office to the new building site.
The property, in the city, is currently a metered parking lot and located between the Public Service Building and PNC Bank.
While the city owns the property, the authority has secured an “option to purchase” agreement with Uniontown City Council.
“We have not given up on the Social Security office being our anchor tenant,” said Thomas Harkless, authority executive director.
“We have reached out to (U.S.) Sen. Bob Casey’s office for assistance.
“However, we have to move forward and we do have other agencies interested.”
While declining to divulge which agencies have indicated interest, Harkless said they are related to government, non-profit and community-type services.
“We are not going to restrict the occupants to only government or community service,” he said. “We would welcome a law firm or a gas company to locate there.”
The size of the office building will depend upon the number of occupants and the square footage needed for their respective business, added Harkless.
The three- or four-story building will have about 10,000 square feet of space on each floor.
Harkless said that the first priority will be to secure tenant leases and prepare preliminary building designs.
“We would like to have that information ready to take to the banks by summer to determine how we will finance the project,” he said.
“If we are successful, we could break ground in the fall.”
Harkless speculated that the construction would take about one year to complete.
Turning to re-organizational matters, the board agreed to retain the current officer structure with Harry Fike as chairman; Robert Onesko, vice-chairman; Harry “Bo” Joseph, treasurer; Mary Wertz, assistant treasurer and Beverly Beal, secretary.
The board will continue to meet the second Thursday of each month at 9 a.m. at the authority office located at 624 Pittsburgh Road, Uniontown.