Pyramid halfway house gets zoning OK

Former site of BG’s foreign student housing building

The city Zoning Hearing Board on Wednesday approved a variance that will allow Pyramid Healthcare to establish a halfway house for women in a building Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School used for foreign student housing, until COVID-19 intervened.

The dorm-like former apartment building near downtown, in the central business district not far from the Cathedral, will replace a halfway house for women currently located in a building that Pyramid wants to remodel on the 600 block of Sixth Avenue.

The house will operate with around-the-clock supervision of clients, under license of the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and the managed care "funders" of the services. Available services will include small-group and individual therapy, lectures and "therapeutic daily activities" like budgeting, cooking and cleaning, according to Aleisha Albertson, Pyramid's regional director of inpatient operations.

Residents come fresh from successful 45- or 90-day stints in drug rehabilitation, and will live voluntarily in the halfway house for about three months, so that the "stable," controlled environment can help them get their lives "back on track" and so they can become productive members of society, said Albertson, under questioning from David Pertile, executive vice president and general counsel for Pyramid.

There can be up to five staffers in the halfway house, including clinicians, a director and a tech, but there will always be at least a tech, whose job during off hours is to monitor the clients, Albertson said.

Clients can obtain passes to go out, including for community service or work, if they show they're following the requirements of the program, but need to tell staff where they're going, with whom and for how long, so staff always know where the clients are, Albertson said.

Clients are not permitted to have vehicles, so they need to rely on public transportation or transportation provided by Pyramid.

Those who want to quit and can't be dissuaded are taken by Pyramid to their listed home addresses -- or lacking those, to a shelter that is generally out of town, according to Albertson.

"So they're not just walking into the community," she said.

The clients are from Pennsylvania, due to insurance considerations.

There has been no visitation in Pyramid halfway houses since COVID-19 began, although prior policy allowed for short, pre-approved visits from family members and friends, Albertson said.

There will be two or three clients per room, with a common dining area and common restrooms.

The front door will remain locked, and there likely will be a fob system, officials said.

There is a sprinkler system, and all the rooms have outside exit routes, which is ideal for fire safety, according to Scott Durbin, a member of the Bishop Guilfoyle board, which is leasing the property to Pyramid.

Pyramid only has to make minor changes to the building, including transitioning some bedrooms into offices, installing alarms and building a ramp, according to architect Joe Oricko, who designed the changes 10 years ago that enabled Guilfoyle to use the building for foreign students.

There are four off-street parking spaces connected with the facility, which is across the alley from the parking lot where McNelis Elementary School used to stand and catty-corner from a current Dollar General Store at 13th Street and 14th Avenue.

On-street parking is also available, officials said.

While the use of the building as a halfway house is not permitted by right in the central business district, it is permitted in the neighborhood business zone that is across 13th Street and across 14th Avenue from the facility, Pertile pointed out.

And while the building originally housed apartments, its current configuration as a dormitory means that it would require significant alterations to become suitable for apartments again, a Pyramid official said.

The board voted unanimously to approve the variance, with a condition that there not be a sign -- which Pyramid would likely not have wanted to install anyway, said Jeff Davis, executive vice president for engineering and construction for Pyramid.

There's no need to advertise the presence of the halfway house to the public, he agreed, when a board official suggested that.

"Quiet and calm is what we like," Davis said.

There are no specific plans for the Sixth Avenue halfway house, Albertson said.

The interest from foreign students has subsided, post-COVID, and it wouldn't make sense to operate the building to house the current four or five, Durbin said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.