Real estate investor sprucing up properties in Clarks Summit

Robert Tomkavage, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
Updated ·2 min read

Feb. 8—A local real estate investor and entrepreneur saw two rundown properties in Clarks Summit and took action.

Charles Hibble of Clarks Summit, owner and broker of Weichert Realtors, Hibble & Associates, bought the buildings on North State Street last year and began renovating them.

Hibble purchased a property at 121 N. State St. for $70,000 and a property at 123 N. State St. for $135,000, according to deeds recorded Dec. 6 in Lackawanna County.

"I'd been trying to get those for just about four years," he said. "One of my agents found out who the owner was, and we negotiated a price. They were dilapidated and overgrown and sitting vacant for years. I wanted them because they were eyesores. I gutted them to the studs inside."

A real estate company will move into 123 N. State St. and the other building will serve as residential rental, Hibble said. He anticipates investing almost $300,000 to rehabilitate the two properties and hopes to complete both projects by the end of spring.

Clarks Summit Borough Manager Virginia Kehoe praised Hibble's initiative with the renovations and looks forward to seeing the buildings revitalized.

"We've had a major problem with the maintenance of the properties there and it's right as you're hitting the downtown," Kehoe said. "The fact that he's going to clean it up and get people using it again is going to be great. It will help the tax base, but it will also improve the appearance."

Among his other projects, Hibble renovated the vacant W.H. Coon wholesale kitchen supply building at 329 Penn Ave. in Scranton into the Electric City Center, a commercial and residential development, in 2006.

Contact the writer:

rtomkavage@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9131;

@rtomkavage on Twitter.