A house on Wopsononock Avenue is the second property to be renovated under an Altoona Redevelopment Authority program to rescue blighted homes before they need to be demolished. Mirror photo by William Kibler

Altoona Redevelopment Authority officials this week showed off the second house that has been renovated under a new program designed to rescue blighted homes in the city before they’re so far gone they need to be demolished.

After being alerted by the city codes office about the house’s potential, authority officials contacted the children of the deceased owner and negotiated a purchase for $1,000, which got the children out from under a responsibility they preferred not to contend with that included outstanding code violations, according to authority member Ron Beatty, who attended the event.

The authority spent $6,000 clearing out the house, “quieted” titles to the house and two adjacent lots that had gone to the county for taxes, took care of some small liens, then advertised a request for renovation proposals — choosing Freedom Rentals, based on a scoring system that took into account not just the $25,000 Freedom offered to buy the property, but also the company’s renovation track record, officials said.

The authority ended up providing one explicit subsidy — the $21,000 purchase of siding, after the authority’s initial specifications to “patch and match” the existing siding proved unworkable, because the old siding was out of production and no good match was available.

Prior to the renovation, the authority laid out a series of requirements, including a new roof and furnace and renewal of the plumbing and electrical systems, according to Community Development Director Eric Luchansky.

The expectation was that Freedom would produce “a top-quality product,” Beatty said.

“A uniform, complete job,” Luchansky said.

“We want an excellent house at a price that is affordable,” Beatty said.

If not for the new program, the house might have been demolished by the city, Beatty said.

The renovations in the program are designed to prevent the loss of tax base caused by demolitions, while raising the values of properties nearby, Beatty said.

Freedom invested about $150,000 into the project and is selling the property for $176,000, for a $26,000 profit, according to Freedom owner Tom Schneider.

Freedom works with Robert L. Ferry Property Maintenance of Martinsburg.

The team has flipped about 15 houses, including a few previously in the city, Bob Ferry said.

Ferry enjoyed working with the authority on the project, and would like to do more such work, he said.

Ferry’s crew consists of subcontractors and includes his two sons.

Problems with the house included some structural issues, a beam that needed to be removed to install the furnace, curled hardwood flooring downstairs, damaged plaster — especially in the ceilings — downstairs and ruined suspended ceilings upstairs.

Ferry didn’t gut the house.

“I’ve never seen the purpose of gutting things if you don’t need to,” Ferry said.

That is especially true for trim — as the older, more substantial, square-cut window and door trim in the house is nicer than the more modern, less robust trim that would have replaced it, Ferry said.

The crew patched the plaster walls in the living and dining rooms; covered the damaged ceiling in the dining room with drywall; stripped plastic tile from the kitchen walls and covered the damaged plaster beneath it with drywall; covered the stairs to the second floor and the pine planking on the floors upstairs with carpet; left the painted paneling in the bedrooms along; and replaced the old suspended ceilings upstairs with a new suspended ceiling.

He left vertical tongue-and-groove pine paneling on the walls and ceiling of a first floor bathroom.

He installed a ceiling under the roof of the back patio, blacktopped the driveway and repoured some of the sidewalks.

The house property will be combined with two others to provide a sizeable yard.

There are new appliances in the kitchen and a new tub and double vanity in the upstairs bathroom.

“It cleaned up nice,” Ferry said of the house.

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