To longtime McKeesport residents, the house at 1608 Jenny Lind St. will probably always be the Waters estate, even though it was also a funeral home.

"It was a beautiful old building," said Lani Temple, executive director of McKeesport Neighborhood Initiative, a non-profit whose mission is to build homes for people with low and moderate incomes.

By the time the organization purchased the large Dutch Colonial in 2004, it was a boarded-up eyesore with severe leaks in its roof and lead-based paint. In a $500,000 renovation completed last year, the three-story house was turned into three apartments, one on each floor. Two are occupied.

The property (MLS No. 797558) is listed for sale at $235,000 with Coldwell Banker Real Estate agent John Geisler (412-344-0500 Ext. 222 or www.pittsburghmoves.com).

---

McKeesport
At a glance

• Website: www.mckeesport.org
• Size: 12.9 square miles
• Population: 24,021 (2000 census)
• School district: McKeesport Area (www.mckasd.com)
• Enrollment: 4,132
• Average SAT scores: verbal 425, math 418, writing 406
• Taxes for a house assessed at $50,000 (building $45,000; land $5,000): $1,367
  
  City: building 4.26 mills; land 16.5 mills
  School: 16.71 mills
  County: 4.69 mills
  
• Service fee: $260 ($65 per quarter)
• Earned income tax: 1.7 percent
• Fun facts: McKeesport was founded in 1795 by John McKee and named for its port at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. McKeesport is one of the few U.S. cities with direct connections to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (through the Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama Canal).

---

"We acquired the property about six years ago, before I was even in charge," said Ms. Temple, who has her master's in nursing administration and worked in nursing full-time for 30 years.

Built in the early 1900s, the brick house has a gambrel roof, Palladian window and large front porch. Each apartment has a living room, bath, kitchen, small dining room and two bedrooms plus new appliances, including stackable washers and dryers, stove, refrigerator and disposal. There's an intercom security system. The first- and second-floor apartments each have more than 1,000 square feet of space. The third floor apartment has 836 square feet.

"Every unit is heated and air conditioned separately and the same is true for water and sewage," Ms. Temple said.

The second-floor apartment offers a deck that overlooks the Youghiogheny River. The first- and second-floor apartments rent for $700 per month and the third-floor apartment is $600. Three parking spots are behind the home.

The property has a total assessed value of $42,600. McKeesport has different tax rates for buildings and land. For this property, the building is valued at $37,100 and the land at $5,500 (www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/).

During the past three years, houses on Jenny Lind Street have sold for prices ranging from $12,000 in April 2009 to $158,000 in July 2008, for a house at 1523 Jenny Lind built by McKeesport Neighborhood Initiative (www.realstats.net)

Mr. Geisler, the Realtor, said prices for larger multi-unit properties in McKeesport are generally much higher. A 30-unit building at 604 Shaw Ave. sold for $325,000 in 2003. Another property, on Versailles, sold for $290,000 in 2003.

"There's a lot of redevelopment going on in this neighborhood," Mr. Geisler said.

McKeesport Neighborhood Initiative is a big part of that. Since its founding in 2002, the organization has built seven houses, four of them on land near a filled-in reservoir. Three new homes a block away from Jenny Lind were finished in 2007, Ms. Temple said.

The Rev. Dr. Jay Geisler, rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, remembers Ms. Temple's predecessor deciding to buy the Waters house from the city of McKeesport.

"He was the one who decided to invest in it with federal and state grants. They had this albatross of a building. They had put all this money in it, in McKeesport, which has lost two-thirds of its population in the last 50 years," the senior pastor said.

Ms. Temple asked Rev. Geisler, a cousin of the Realtor, to become a board member and to help market the property.

Renovating the house proved difficult. The organization ended up suing its first contractor. After it won in court, the contractor declared bankruptcy, Rev. Geisler said.

The Episcopal priest, who lived in East Liberty from 1988 to 1998, has remained passionate about urban ministry since moving to McKeesport in 2003.

Watching East Liberty improve, he noted the two popular ways to renew a neighborhood: renovate the best homes and the worst, or raze the worst and build new houses, hoping that neighbors will be inspired to upgrade their own properties. Both have been used in the Jenny Lind area.

"You have to do what's most visible to visitors to McKeesport. We're doing what we can. We have had people move in and people own their own property. That area has improved, just as I saw in East Liberty but it does take time. Perceptions change more slowly," he said.

Prospective buyers of new homes must meet income guidelines and be employed. Once they qualify, they can look at models offered by Wayne Homes and request some internal changes, Ms Temple said.

"Everybody who gets a house from us has to go through credit counseling. That's why we've had no failures," she said.

The ideal buyer for the Waters estate, the Rev. Geisler said, is, "someone who has a commitment to bring McKeesport back. Or, if someone said, 'I want to move here and rent the other two floors out so I can make my mortgage.'

"What we would not want is ... an absentee landlord. We're trying to do what's best for the community," he said.

Rev. Geisler noted that St. Stephen's is less than a mile from the Waters estate.

"I know people have written McKeesport off. But all these river towns will eventually come back. People like living along rivers."

Doug Oster writes a blog, "Growing With Doug," exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.