Renovations are well underway at Granite Ridge, the former Mercyhurst North East campus.
We got an inside look at some of the improvements on Thursday.
In about 10 months, the owners of Granite Ridge have implemented dozens of residential units and have plans to use more of the campus, including the chapel.
A company called Blue Ocean purchased the former Mercyhurst North East campus in January, renaming it Granite Ridge.
Renovations are well underway.
“When you have a property that’s been in a specific use for over 100 years, there’s a lot of design changes that need to go into if you want to separate those spaces,” said Bill Unger, director of operations, Granite Ridge.
Unger says there are plans to use the chapel for wedding ceremonies, adding many couples have expressed interest. He told us he hopes they can be scheduled in 2023.
In addition to the chapel, they remodeled former dorms into townhomes that are now fully occupied.
He said more apartments will soon be available.
“We very seldom have vacancies, so that’s allowed us to look at expanding. We have a property in the back, 12 to 15 acres back there, to where we look at adding probably 40 to 60 additional cottage-type units in the future,” said Unger. “We’ve taken our time. We’ve been very patient. We’ve had some outside-the-area interest as well as a lot of local interest, and we’re trying to evaluate how can we combine the two. So we’re looking at some opportunities that hopefully will do that in the near future.”
Unger said Granite Ridge could provide businesses owners with a chance to get their feet wet, and partner with other local businesses
“See if there’s an opportunity maybe for them to partner in spaces as well, for maybe the small business not ready to take on a full space by themselves, but maybe if they were to partner with somebody else and share times, we may be able to offer the spaces to them,” said Unger.
The Erie Sports Center has teamed up with Granite Ridge to host sports camps over the summer. They say next year they plan to do the same thing.
