White Swan Apartments nearing move-ins after total renovation
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Above, Fayette County Housing Authority Executive Director Mark Yauger (bottom left) stands before the newly renovated White Swans Apartments.
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Nick Liokareas of Bethel Park-based Liokareas Construction Co., the general contractor for an estimated $13 million renovation of White Swan Apartments, takes in a view of West Main Street in downtown Uniontown out a window of one of 47 senior housing units inside the 94-year-old building.
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Pictured is the view of downtown Uniontown outside a window at one of 47 units inside White Swan Apartments, a once and future senior housing complex.
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Pictured is the former hotel ballroom and soon-to-be community room at the newly renovated White Swan Apartments on West Main Street in Uniontown.
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Fayette County Housing Authority Executive Director Mark Yauger (right), who led the authority to a $13 million renovation of White Swan Apartments in Uniontown, a project whose general contractor has been Nick Liokareas (left) of Bethel Park-based Liokareas Construction Company. “He went above and beyond,” Yauger said of Liokareas while both observed the progress inside the building’s former ballroom, whose arched windows look out toward West Fayette Street.
Mike Tony/For the Observer-Reporter
Pictured is one of 47 newly renovated low-income senior housing units at White Swan Apartments in Uniontown, courtesy of a $13 million building rehabilitation project covered almost entirely by low-income housing tax credits.
“It’s 10 times better than I dreamed,” Fayette County Housing Authority Executive Director Mark Yauger said, gazing out the arched windows of what was once the ballroom of the White Swan Hotel on West Main Street in Uniontown.
What exceeded Yauger’s expectations was the quality of the total reconstruction of White Swan Apartments, made possible by low-income housing tax credits covering nearly all of a roughly $13 million investment.
“It takes many hands to be standing here with this building in this kind of condition,” Yauger said.
White Swan Apartments is a once and future senior housing complex whose 78 units emptied out in 2017 as rehabilitation efforts began at the building. Now there are 47 larger units soon to be available for low-income residents 62 and older – 27 public housing units and 20 voucher units – with tenant processing underway and move-ins expected around Mar. 1.
“The building is just gorgeous,” Fayette County Housing Authority board Chairman Harry Fike said. “It’s beautiful.”
Adding to the beauty, Fike and Yauger say, is that the building seemed destined for demolition before the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) in 2016 awarded the Fayette County Housing Authority tax credits totaling nearly $1.2 million in tax credits per year over a 10-year period.
The building was becoming untenable due to faltering electrical, plumbing and heating systems, and Fike recalled two previous tax credit applications made by the Fayette County Housing Authority that were ultimately rejected.
But the support of local elected officials including the Fayette County Board of Commissioners, then-U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Bullskin Township, along with interagency organizational efforts from then-state Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-South Union Township, made a crucial difference, Fike recalled, also noting that senior staff for U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters Township, recently visited the building as well.
The end result is a building-saving renovation that required everything inside to be gutted inside the exterior walls, featuring a new solar-paneled roof, a new elevator, a library room, a wellness room, a card-operated laundry room, and a large community room with adjacent kitchen and restroom amenities where the ballroom once was.
“He went above and beyond,” Yauger said of Nick Liokareas of Bethel Park-based Liokareas Construction Co., the general contractor for the project. “And it shows.”
Liokareas recalled that existing floors had been patched and repatched so many times that workers encountered different elevations, while fireproofing had to be added to the light gauge steel material found when existing wall was torn down.
Liokareas said that his company had added five Fayette County-based workers since the project began, and that the company had developed a strong relationship during the project with vendors including O.C. Cluss Lumber Company and Sherwin Williams, the latter of which can be seen outside the arched windows of what is to be the community room.
“This runs deeper than providing 47 units for elderly people,” Yauger said.
Uniontown-based Pine Hollow Mechanical was the mechanical and plumbing contractor and Washington County-based A1 Electric was the electrical contractor, Yauger said.
The project’s contractors and subcontractors were dealing with a building constructed in 1925 that carries a rich history, having reportedly hosted guests including President William Howard Taft and Uniontown’s own native son, Gen. George C. Marshall.
The Fayette County Housing Authority purchased the White Swan Hotel in 1966 and converted it into a senior public housing complex.
Yauger said the renovations were designed to be as “historically correct” as possible, including restoring limestone to the building’s façade.
“It’s as original as we could get,” Yauger said.
The building, which has five occupiable floors, now features eight fully handicapped-accessible units as well as hearing and visually impaired units, Yauger added, also noting that an open house will be held there at a date to be determined.
“It should be good for a lot of years,” Fike said.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the project was held in Dec. 2017.
Since then, the Fayette County Housing Authority and its board members have gotten grateful phone calls from area residents, Yauger recalled.
“They didn’t want to see it torn down,” Yauger said.
The Fayette County Housing Authority approved Pittsburgh-based NDC Asset Management to manage the property for three years, Yauger said.
Fike thanked housing authority staff for “work(ing) their butts off” to prepare and follow through on the fateful tax credit application, and Yauger appreciates PHFA for recognizing the project’s importance to Uniontown and Fayette County, yielding tax credits for the authority to sell to investor PNC.
“There’s no way we could do this without a low-income housing tax credit program,” Yauger said.
“Nothing was easy,” Fike said. “It was all a bunch of hard work.”