DUNMORE — A former deaf school campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton that operated for over a century but fell largely dormant and into disrepair over the past decade could soon have new life as an apartment complex.
A sweeping rejuvenation of the nearly 9-acre, former Scranton State School for the Deaf property in Green Ridge began last year after the new owner, a private firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, acquired the site from a nonprofit foundation through a foreclosure. Previously, Marywood University had owned, but never used, the campus for several years after the deaf school relocated in 2011 to South Abington Township.
The courtyard of the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Bounded by North Washington and Jefferson avenues and Electric and Evelyn streets, the 8.56-acre former deaf-school campus has eight, architecturally distinctive stone-block buildings dating to the late 1800s and early 1900s, all situated on 6.66 acres in Dunmore; and a 1973 brick building on 1.9 acres along North Washington Avenue in Scranton.
A campus grows
The roots of the campus date to a precursor institution founded in 1882 by the Rev. Jacob Koehler, who was deaf and a leading advocate of compulsory education of deaf children, according to an historical marker at the site erected in 1999 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
According to archives of The Times-Tribune: Koehler was born in 1860 in York and later moved to Scranton with his family; having lost his hearing to spinal meningitis at around age 10 or 11, he attended a school for the deaf in Philadelphia and then studied at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a college for deaf students; he returned to Scranton in 1880 to care for his sick father and became the first teacher of deaf children in Scranton. In 1882, Koehler started a deaf school with nine students in the basement of a Baptist church in downtown Scranton, teaching sign language and the alphabet and laying the groundwork for a boarding school. Enlisting benefactors, Koehler got the first building of a deaf school constructed in 1889 at the Green Ridge site; and over the years, the school also had other titles, including Pennsylvania Oral School for Deaf Mutes and Pennsylvania State Oral School for the Deaf.
The facility constructed two other buildings in 1892 and five more around the 1930s, all in the same style of stone blocks; and then added a different-looking, rectangular brick building in 1973, said Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, who is a part-owner of 1801 Jefferson LLC now converting the campus into apartments.
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway and partner in the firm that owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf walks through the hallway in a building on the former school’s campus in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Marywood University ownership
With the deaf school vacating the campus, Marywood University in 2010-11 acquired the property from the state. But Marywood never used its “Marywood South” campus and by 2015 had started trying to sell it.
From 2018-20, proposals for the property included Los Angeles developer Lance Robbins’ plan to convert the campus into an artists’ apartment complex; and a separate plan for an art school and retreat center by the Elysian Sanctuary. Neither panned out.
Meanwhile, the conditions of the vacant buildings deteriorated.
In 2021, Marywood sold the property to the nonprofit Jarett Yoder Foundation, a Berks County-based nonprofit veterans assistance organization. The Yoder foundation’s goal was to use the campus as the Patriot Resource Center at Marywood, a facility to assist veterans and community first-responders in need. To buy the site, the foundation borrowed from Marywood and the university held the mortgage. The foundation occupied the site for a time, but the arrangement soon unraveled and resulted in a default.
A gymnasium in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
1801 Jefferson LLC takes over
In 2022, Marywood’s assigning of the mortgage to 1801 Jefferson LLC took the university out of the picture. Foreclosure proceedings by 1801 Jefferson LLC against the foundation began in 2023 and wrapped up last May, when the company took full control of the property. The firm immediately started replacing leaky roofs and followed with interior renovations that remain ongoing. Had neglect continued, the buildings might not have been savable, Conway said.
“I think if it probably sat for another year, how it was, the buildings would have had to be demolished. The amount of water that was going in — every roof was shot, every building leaked, water everywhere,” Conway said.
But with new roofs and time to dry out, interior renovations now are starting to take shape. The exterior stone-block construction of the late 1880s and early 1900s remains solid and in good condition, he said.
“This is all original. It’s still in phenomenal shape,” Conway said. “We’re not touching the exteriors, outside of cleaning them up. They’re beautiful (just) as they are.”
Now privately owned, deaf-school property also has now for the first time gone onto the tax rolls. Unique in design and layout, the landmark campus in Green Ridge resembles a collection of small castles and has all of its buildings connected via abutments and passageways. Parts of the property are courtyards, open space and wooded. One of the buildings contained a former natatorium that had a large swimming pool that at some point had been filled in with dirt and covered with flooring for use as a wood shop. The story above the former pool contains a former gym basketball court with a stage. The hardwood floor of the basketball court had to be removed from water damage.
A building that previously was a boy’s dorm and infirmary at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Apartments underway
With a goal of eventually creating a total of about 70 to 80 apartments, the company hopes to complete by the end of this year a first phase of 15, 12 and nine apartment units in three of the buildings, respectively, as well as commercial/office space on the first floor of the 1973 building along North Washington Avenue, Conway said. Concepts for other buildings, including the former pool/gym building, remain undetermined, he said.
“We’re going to do it phases,” Conway said of the redevelopment called The State School, and which has a website of StateSchoolLiving.com and email address of info@stateschoolliving.com.
The buildings also had largely been emptied out of contents and debris by the time 1801 Jefferson LLC took over, said Bob Burke, who is another part-owner of that company.
“There was not as much gutting as we thought” would be needed, Burke said.
The concept of creating apartments at the former deaf school campus is similar to redevelopments elsewhere in the city in recent years. Those have involved conversions of former office buildings and stores downtown into apartment buildings, and transformations of various former schools and industrial sites in neighborhoods into residences.
Likewise, Conway, who is a Realtor, thinks there will be demand for apartments at the former deaf school campus, partly from downsizing empty-nesters.
“A lot people, they have these beautiful homes (in Green Ridge), 3,000 to 4,000 square feet with two people living there. They don’t need all that space but don’t want to leave the neighborhood,” Conway said. “So my thought is, why not just come here. These will be nice apartments and it would free up a lot of housing for younger families.”
Green Ridge Neighborhood Association President Laura Agostini said of the project, “I like what they’re doing with everything I’ve seen so far bringing it back to life, and I think there’s a need for apartments in Green Ridge.”
Agostini also hopes to see the former pool/gym building turned into a community center or venue of some sort.
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An interior of a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Buildings at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An interior of a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An interior of a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Two buildings at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus on Thursday, April 2, 2026. The building at left is in Scranton, while the building at right is in Dunmore. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A vintage piano inside a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A vintage piano inside a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A vintage piano inside a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A passageway connecting buildings at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Scranton and Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A former locker room in a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Scranton along North Washington Avenue on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An interior of a building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf along North Washington Avenue in Scranton on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Scranton along North Washington Avenue on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An historical marker for the former Scranton State School for the Deaf, along North Washington Avenue in Green Ridge in Scranton, on April 1, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Scranton along North Washington Avenue on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
The former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore has a section with small footbridge over an intermittent stream off Jefferson Avenue and Electric Street, shown here on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
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A building at the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus in Dunmore on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A gymnasium in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway and partner in the firm that owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf walks through a building on the former school’s campus in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A hallway in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
An area that previously held the swimming pool in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway and partner in the firm that owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf describes an area under construction in the former school’s campus in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The interior of a building in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A vehicle from RLE Enterprises sits on the grounds of the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
An aerial view of the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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A gymnasium in the former Scranton State School for the Deaf in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, a partner in a firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, and which is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings, is shown here in one of the buildings, that has interior framing underway on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings. Workers are building interior framing in one of the buildings on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, a partner in a firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, and which is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings, is shown here in a former gym on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC that now owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings. Stone-block buildings on campus situated in Dunmore and dating to the late 1800s and early 1900s feature distinctive stone architecture. Photo taken Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, a partner in a firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, and which is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings, is shown here walking through one of the buildings on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, a partner in a firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, and which is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings, is shown here in a former pool natatorium on Thursday, April 2, 2026. The pool had been filled in and covered with a floor for years. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
A firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC that now owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings. Stone-block buildings on campus situated in Dunmore and dating to the late 1800s and early 1900s feature distinctive stone architecture. One building has a carving on a facade with the initials “P.O.S.,” which stood for “Pennsylvania Oral School,” which was site’s original name. Photo taken Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
An historical marker for the former Scranton State School for the Deaf, along North Washington Avenue in Green Ridge in Scranton, on April 1, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
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Dunmore Mayor Max Conway, a partner in a firm called 1801 Jefferson LLC, which owns the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus straddling Dunmore and Scranton in Green Ridge, and which is renovating and converting several of the buildings there into apartment buildings, is shown here in one of the buildings, that has interior framing underway on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)