The architecturally distinctive Finch Towers apartment building in Scranton, which was constructed in 1889 as a school for miners, was sold for $2.6 million.
Finch Towers Associates of Pennsylvania sold the apartment building at 424 Wyoming Ave. effective July 2 to ALC Finch Towers LLC of Columbus, Ohio, according to a deed recorded Wednesday.
A person answering the phone Thursday of the Monarch Management Group at Finch Towers, who declined to be identified, said there are no changes for tenants resulting from the sale. Efforts were unsuccessful to reach Finch Towers ownership.
Under the transaction, ALC Finch Towers LLC assumes the Section 8 housing obligations at Finch Towers, according to an assignment agreement also recorded Wednesday.
Finch Towers has 48 efficiency and one-bedroom units for people age 62 and older or disabled, and with affordable rent based on income qualifications, according to Monarch Management’s website.
In February, the city notified Finch Towers that it had not complied with rental registration requirements since 2022 and the property then began the process to comply, city officials had said. The property currently is in rental-registration compliance, city Business Administrator Eileen Cipriani said Thursday.
Built in 1889 and designed by W. Scott Collins, Finch Towers features distinctive architecture, according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The society website contains the following description of the building: “French Chateauesque’s origins in the Romanesque are evidenced in this building by Collins, who headed the architectural department of the International Correspondence Schools (ICS). It was designed to house ICS, a mail-order school founded in Shenandoah, Schuylkill County (and famous for its matchbook advertising), which prepared aspiring miners for their qualifying examinations. The building was later sold to the Hudson Coal Company and today it serves as housing for the elderly.”
Finch Towers in Scranton in 2001. (TIMES-TRIBUNE / FILE PHOTO)