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In a city with a surplus of vacant residential buildings, it might seem counter-productive to build more houses.

But Lani Turner, executive director of the McKeesport Neighborhood Initiative, says it's part of a bigger strategy to make the city an attractive hometown again.

"We have a lot of houses that are pretty bad, and people don't want to live in them," she says. "A lot of demolition has to occur yet."

Turner was one of seven local and state officials and community leaders who joined about 100 city-area residents to cut the ribbon Thursday afternoon on four new houses nearing completion in the Seventh Ward.

The houses on the former Union Avenue reservoir site, near Centennial Elementary School, will be ready for occupancy Dec. 16. Three more homes are being built next year.

All of the homes --- with a list price of about $150,000 --- are spoken for. Turner says finding buyers who want to move back to McKeesport hasn't been a problem. In fact, as Turner talked to a reporter, a young woman approached and asked how she could get more information about the MNI.

The Union Avenue development, which features three- and four-bedroom, split-level homes, will bring the number of new MNI homes in the Seventh Ward to 20. It was funded in part by a $100,000 grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank's Affordable Housing Program.

Over the past few years, MNI has led efforts to construct about a dozen new housing units in the neighborhood, including a three-unit condominium.

MNI's construction programs accomplish several goals, Turner says. Besides adding quality new housing, they remove blighted properties that depress property values.

"When we built one of the houses down there on Jenny Lind Street, we had to demolish a beautiful old home," she says, "but the foundation had collapsed, and there was no way to salvage it ... some of these old houses, people really can't buy them. It would cost more to remodel and rehabilitate them than it costs to build a new one."

The Seventh Ward was one of several city neighborhoods where working people rubbed shoulders with the region's wealthiest businessmen. These days, many homes are abandoned; many more are owned by absentee landlords who scrimp on maintenance.

At the ribbon-cutting, Mayor Jim Brewster remembered when he and other local kids played ball and fought around the reservoir, then snuck into Menzie Dairy Co.'s plant on Riverview Avenue for "free" chocolate milk and orange drink.

The Menzie plant, which closed in 1976, was vacant for decades before being torn down to make way for new housing.

"We've invested a lot of resources into the Seventh Ward in terms of demolition and paving," Brewster said. "I know we've got a lot more to get to. But these things are expensive, and much of what we do, we do through grants and hard work."

Residents in other neighborhoods have questioned why so much money is being spent up on the hill, he said, but eliminating vacant, blighted buildings and clearing land for new houses has a benefit across the city.

"The end result is that (vacant lots) go on the tax rolls, and guess what?" Brewster said. "Our tax revenues go up."

Work on bringing housing to the old reservoir site began in 2000, but preparing the land for construction and arranging the funding took longer than anyone expected.

"When we first walked this site, it was a mess," said Robert Bobincheck, director of strategic planning and policy for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which is underwriting the mortgages on the homes. "Now, you can see hope. This is the fruition of all of the time and money that's been invested."

General contractor on the reservoir project was Wayne Homes of Uniontown, Ohio. Other partners included the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development, McKeesport Housing Corp., Redevelopment Authority of the City of McKeesport, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.