{"id":262861,"date":"2026-08-10T21:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/262861\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:42:08","slug":"firm-sells-part-of-former-deaf-school-campus-in-scranton-parking-shared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/262861\/","title":{"rendered":"Firm sells part of former deaf school campus in Scranton, parking shared"},"content":{"rendered":"

A company of Dunmore Mayor Max Conway that\u2019s redeveloping the nearly 9-acre former deaf school campus in Dunmore and Scranton into apartments sold part of the nearly 2-acre portion in Scranton to another local company for $100,000.<\/p>\n

Along with a deed recorded Friday for that transaction, both companies also recorded an easement regarding parking at the landmark site straddling both municipalities in the Green Ridge neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Conway is a manager of a company called 1801 Jefferson LLC that sold 1.168 acres of the campus to a firm called 1802 North Washington LLC of 3 West Olive St., Suite 205, in Scranton, according to the deed. An easement agreement listed Thomas Rainey as manager of 1802 North Washington LLC. On Monday, Conway declined to immediately comment and efforts to reach Rainey were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

The redevelopment of the former Scranton State School for the Deaf campus would result in 106 apartments in the nine buildings on the site, an engineer for 1801 Jefferson LLC told the Scranton Planning Commission last month.<\/p>\n

The deaf school operated for over a century but fell largely dormant and into disrepair over the past decade. The 1801 Jefferson LLC firm acquired the site from a nonprofit foundation through a foreclosure. Previously, Marywood University owned, but never used, the campus for several years after the deaf school relocated in 2011 to South Abington Twp.<\/p>\n

Last year, 1801 Jefferson LLC began undertaking a sweeping rejuvenation of the property into an apartment complex. 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.<\/p>\n

The plan presented to the City Planning Commission calls for 14 apartments in the three-story building in Scranton, with seven apartments going into each of the upper floors, and the first floor getting office and retail space.<\/p>\n

The buildings in Dunmore would all get apartments, ranging from two to 26. The apartments would be a mix of one- and two-bedroom dwellings.<\/p>\n

The 1801 Jefferson company also recently subdivided the campus from one parcel into four, including two each in Scranton and Dunmore, the engineer, Dave Loptaka, told the planning commission in July. Of the two parcels in Scranton, one lot contains the 1973 building and the other lot contains the area along North Washington Avenue and Electric Street. Of the two parcels in Dunmore, one lot contains the eight older buildings and the other lot contains the wooded area on the other side of Meadow Brook, along Electric Street and Jefferson Avenue.<\/p>\n

Regarding parking, the city requires one parking space per apartment unit and Dunmore requires two spaces per unit. The land in Scranton might have more room for parking such that some spaces there might be used for apartments in Dunmore, Lopatka had said. \u201cBut there potentially could be, if they do sell any of these lots and there\u2019s different owners, they would naturally have to have some kind of agreement between the two,\u201d regarding parking, Lopatka told the commission.<\/p>\n

The 1801 Jefferson LLC firm and its predecessors have used common access and parking throughout the entire property, and an \u201caccess easement and shared parking agreement\u201d recorded Friday continues that arrangement.<\/p>\n

The easement agreement references that Parcel 3 consists of 1.168 acres, or 50,894 square feet, with an existing three-story commercial building and additional lands. Under the easement pact, the parties agree that 1801 Jefferson LLC and its guests, tenants, invitees, employees, agents, successors and\/or assigns \u201cshall have the perpetual and permanent right to an unobstructed easement on, over, through or across\u201d Parcel 3, from North Washington Avenue and Evelyn Street to the remaining lands of 1801 Jefferson LLC, and \u201cfor the benefit of the entire property.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 a historical marker at the site erected in 1999 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. The first building of a deaf school was constructed in 1889 at the Green Ridge site. 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 the different-looking, rectangular brick building in 1973.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn 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)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A company of Dunmore Mayor Max Conway that\u2019s redeveloping the nearly 9-acre former deaf school campus in Dunmore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-262861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}