A correctional company's request to allow 108 adult offenders into a facility currently housing juveniles has mobilized protests in Wilkinsburg.

The Cornell Co., which owns the Penn Avenue building housing the Abraxas Center for Adolescent Females, has appealed a zoning board condition that would limit the number of adults allowed in the facility.

Cornell specializes in corrections and therapeutic services, and contracts its services to local, federal and state entities. The company operates more than 70 facilities nationwide, including 23 in Pennsylvania and three in the Pittsburgh region.

Zoning board administrator David Gilliland said the company's request to change the facility from a "group residential facility" that houses juveniles, to a "group care facility" that houses former adult inmates, was approved this year.

The board limited the number of adults in the facility to 19, but Cornell contends that it already has approval for 108 people in the building. Mr. Gilliland said the borough had no record of approving the building to house 108 people.

Cornell spokesman Charles Siegel said the company did not have a customer seeking to use the facility for adults, but applied for the variance to leave its options open.

"We wanted to be able to, given the current economic climate with the government, have the option to house juveniles and adults so that if there was an issue with one of our clients, we would be able to find another customer of a different type," he said.

Residents who attended the 41/2-hour zoning hearing board meeting Oct. 28 spoke overwhelmingly against the change, saying it would increase crime, lower property values and cast a negative light on the borough at a time when it is working to enhance its image.

"We're a community where our children walk to school and are not bused," said Wood Street resident Linda Kirkland Law. "The fact that we will not be notified of who's in there at what time, and for what reason, just isn't a good scenario all the way around."

Former councilwoman Cara Whitfield said a full-capacity adult correctional facility would discourage prospective homeowners from purchasing newly developed properties in the area.

"You're talking about an area with single-family homes across the street," she said. "Around the corner on Peebles [Street], there are brand-new houses. On Braddock Avenue, there are single-family homes and churches.

"I'm tired of my community being a basin for unwanted people. That's what Wilkinsburg is turning into."

Police Chief Ophelia Coleman said she was told a federal re-entry program could bring members of the Larimer Avenue-Wilkinsburg (LAW) gang back into the community. The gang was largely dismantled after most of its members were arrested through a federal crackdown in 1996.

"That LAW gang decimated this community, it put it on its knees," the chief said. "People are fearful."

But Mr. Siegel reiterated that there are no solid plans for use of the facility, so there is no way of saying who will end up there.

"If they're in the state system and we end up with a federal contract, they won't end up there," he said.

The zoning hearing board will address the issue at its meeting on Nov. 19.

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