Long-abandoned Martin Shirt, Abbatoir to come down
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - The former Martin Shirt Factory building on East Poplar Street, seen on May 29, 2024.
SHENANDOAH – Two long-abandoned buildings in the southeast section of town will be coming down by the end of the summer, borough officials said at Monday’s council meeting.
The Martin Shirt Factory and the Shenandoah Abbatoir are two large, imposing structures comprising a campus along East Poplar Street and Abbatoir Road.
They’ve been abandoned for decades. Martin Shirt closed in 1996, and a 1995 photo of the Abbatoir on the Schuylkill County Parcel Locator shows signs of decay at that time.
Owned by Glenn Paterson, now deceased, the Martin Shirt building has caught fire twice in the past 12 years.
Code Enforcement Officer Mark Pronio said the campus will soon be brought down.
Martin Shirt is being purchased at repository sale for $1, and the Abbatoir is being signed over by Hyder Binjameel, who has owned it since 2011.
“We’re proud owners of the old slaughterhouse,” Pronio said. “This is something I’ve been working on for six months.”
Pronio said the demolitions will be funded by the county.
“I’m hoping that, by the end of this summer, we’ll have machinery down there and they’ll be gone,” Pronio said.
The Martin Shirt Co. plant has sat abandoned since its 1996 closure. Daniel Saluta owned the company and had announced plans in late 1995 to sell the plant and keep its 55 employees. A month later, those plans were scrapped, the plant was closed, and 55 people were out of a job.
Saluta — through Martin Blouse Co. Inc. — held onto the plant until 2004, selling it for just $600 to Glenn Paterson, listed owner of other dilapidated, collapsing, or now-demolished properties in town. The plant has suffered the same fate.
Paterson passed away in 2019.
The Abbatoir was built by architect Percy Kley and was a major firm in Shenandoah’s heyday, according to the Evening Herald’s Shenandoah Chronicles series, published in the 1990s.
In 1922, the company was the largest meat processing and packing plant in Schuylkill County. Home of the Nonpareil ham, the company processed up to two railroad cars of hogs each day.
Advancements in refrigeration made meat packing facilities in every town — like the Abbatoir and the Armour plant, which later became United Wiping Cloth — obsolete and the Abbatoir closed some time in the midcentury. It had changed names to the Top Packing Company before closing in 1947. At the time, it was one of the leading industries in town and second only to mining in employing men.
It is unclear if it ever reopened. It sold to Michael Wozniak in 1955. He was listed as owner of the property until 2011.
Blight remediation program proposed
Pronio, at Monday’s meeting, also called for the borough to start a blight remediation program.
“There is more funding out there,” Pronio said. He said that a municipality with an active blight remediation program can be more competitive in getting that funding.
He said he’s been in contact with state officials in drafting a program.
“I’ll draw up the outline,” Pronio said. “I want the language to read in a way that it will supplement or help us cultivate more grant money in the future.”
“I need council to be on board with me,” Pronio added. “I’m not going to waste the time doing this if you guys aren’t going to approve this.”
His hope is to handle three houses a month with borough funds to send a message that Shenandoah is serious about handling blight. The funds would come from the interest on the MABS sale proceeds.
“We’re in a unique position,” Pronio said. “No other borough in this county, or probably in the state, at our size is in the position we are with the availability of funds.”
“If we’re serious about turning Shenandoah around and picking up the blighted properties,” Pronio said, ” I remember talking about it at a meeting a couple months ago, I don’t remember the last time we built anything in Shenandoah. Well, if we do this, I guarantee you we’ll be building.”
Pronio added that liens can be placed on properties to recoup the costs incurred.
“What better investment than that,” Pronio said, adding that the work could incentivize federal housing investments in town.
Councilman Joe Gawrylik asked about a program Mahanoy City has, which Pronio said is the demolition dumpster program. Mahanoy City reimburses up to $2,000 in dumpster fees connected with blight demolition undertaken by private citizens.
Council President Joe Boris added that blight has been a priority since he was elected.
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