A tentative agreement is in the works for the Westmoreland County Housing Authority to buy long-vacant property from Jeannette City School District for $28,000.

Authority director Mike Washowich said he hopes the property can help expand parking for nearby Jeannette Manor residents and caregivers. But officials plan to examine the empty land further to see what options might be available.

“Exactly what it’s going to be used for, we don’t know,” Washowich said.

Jeannette City School District directors on Monday authorized the superintendent and solicitor to move forward with the potential sale to the authority. The matter will come before the board again for a final vote, said superintendent Matt Jones.

“That just gets the ball rolling,” he said. “Our board will have to vote on the sales agreement.”

District officials have been trying for years to sell the property next to the First Presbyterian Church of Jeannette and at the intersection of Cuyler and Chambers avenues and South Fourth Street. It was most recently listed for $40,000 through Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.

The listing says it is four contiguous parcels totaling about 1 acre.

The land previously was school site. Classes there started in the 1920s. It was used by high schoolers until a new building was constructed in 1959. The South Fourth Street school switched to middle school classes until the early 1990s when students were moved to the current McKee building on Lowry Avenue, according to a book compiled for Jeannette’s 125th anniversary.

In 2005, school directors rejected a $5 bid from a Pittsburgh company to purchase the building and demolished it later that year, according to the book and Tribune-Review archives. Several residents collected artifacts from the building to create a monument in its memory.

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