Demolition begins on century-old Penn-McKee Hotel in McKeesport

The demolition of a century of history in McKeesport began on Monday, as crews started tearing down the site of the old Penn-McKee Hotel.

The city is using state and federal funding to revitalize its downtown and riverfront.

"It breaks my heart, it really does," Angelia Olson of Clairton said.

The building had kept deteriorating over the course of time, with people continually breaking in, Olson said.

The hotel opened in 1926, with retail space, a coffee shop, a dining room, and a ballroom, fire crews said.

Former U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon once debated there in 1947, fire crews wrote on Facebook.

Ron Minnicks remembers what it used to be like.

"My earliest memories of that building was sitting there having lunch," said Minnicks, who is on the board of directors of the McKeesport Regional Heritage Center.

The last tenant left in the early 1990s. McKeesport studied the potential for renovating it, but the mayor said it would need a significant amount of structural support just to stop the building from swaying.

"It took millions of dollars to just secure the building. And then on top of that, the renovation, it just wasn't feasible to save it," Mayor Tommy Maglicco said.

The mayor wishes more could have been done sooner. He said it would have been nice to work on the hotel when the owners still owned it 30 years ago.

Still, people like Minnicks salvaged what they could, taking pieces of wood and even stools to preserve before the demolition started.

Now crews are making way for something different.

"This is an area that we really want to see come back and revive," Maglicco said.

The mayor said the plan is to install a green space, as the site sits near the trail area in McKeesport. He said music and arts are what he sees as a way to help bring that part of town back.

Demolition should take 60 to 90 days, he said, and some of the brick will be saved for a small space there.

Olson wished the building could have been saved, but that this city needs something it can use.

"It's definitely time, as sad as it is," she said.

The mayor says part of Fifth Avenue will be closed during this process. Drivers in the area are advised to watch out for detours on Market Street to Ninth Street to Joe Bendel Way.