Pharmacy plans to tear down long vacant, dilapidated former church in Tarentum

Blackburn’s Physicians Pharmacy has acquired another building in Tarentum it plans to tear down to make room for its growth.

Randy Prunty, business development manager for Blackburn’s, said the company bought a former church at the corner of East Fourth Avenue and Lock Street to get rid of the rundown building to allow room for parking and potential expansion. Blackburn’s main distribution center is across an alley from the church property.

The building has been unoccupied since the early 1980s, according to Cindy Homburg, an unofficial borough historian. Blackburn’s acquired it at an Allegheny County Sheriff’s sale, Prunty said.

According to Allegheny County real estate records, the property, at 312 Lock St., sold March 31 for $15,000. The property’s total assessed value is $82,200.

“We are trying to improve the community by getting rid of buildings that are dangerous to the community,” Prunty said. “This building sat in the condition you see it in for decades. We finally decided enough is enough.”

Prunty said the company plans to use the lot in the short term for employee parking and for potential expansion in the long term. That’s the same plan Blackburn’s has for another property nearby on East Fourth, where it tore down a building in 2019.

Blackburn’s has been granted a demolition permit for the former church, borough code enforcement officer Anthony Bruni said. Gillette is the demolition contractor.

“Because it is a nonresidential building, an asbestos survey must be completed prior to demolition,” Bruni said.

“Gillette will receive the report, and if there is a significant amount of asbestos-containing material present, he will then have to contract with an asbestos abatement company for the removal,” Bruni said. “Allegheny County Health Department will oversee the process from there.”

Prunty said the abatement process is underway, and the demolition will start as soon as that’s done.

He said the goal is to have the building torn down in July.

Homburg said the church’s history dates back to 1888, when St. Barnabas Episcopal Church laid the cornerstone. Episcopal services were held there from June 1890 until July 1949, when they moved to a new location in Brackenridge.

“During the 1936 flood, the water was about one foot below the top of the door on Lock Street,” she said.

The church later was used by the First Church of Christ Scientist, which closed in the late 1970s, Homburg said.

Prunty said nothing of value, historical or otherwise, remains. Homburg said its stained glass windows had already been removed.

“It just needs to come down,” Prunty said.