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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A possible change from a house of worship to a place of labor has some East End residents concerned about the plans to convert the former Holy Saviour church into a sheet metal business.</p><p>Peter L. Dragon III has a hearing Wednesday afternoon before the city&#8217;s Zoning Hearing Board to renovate the historic structure so he can fabricate sheet metal and store and distribute it from there. The headquarters of PLD Associates Inc. are located nearby on Scott Street.</p><p>A call to Dragon Friday was not returned.</p><p>Residents Aleta Payne and Kathy Evans are worried about noise, truck traffic and the safety of children who play in the neighborhood.</p><p>Reader Lane separates Payne&#8217;s house on Penn Street from the church. She said work has already been done in the basement and showed off building permits and the zoning hearing notice taped to the windows of a rear door.</p><p>&#8220;This is a nice neighborhood,&#8221; Payne said. &#8220;They&#8217;re just going to ruin it.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t understand how they can do it,&#8221; added Evans.</p><p>They stood next Payne&#8217;s house in the parking lot that Dragon wants to use for the business. &#8220;See how quiet it is,&#8221; Payne said as the buzz of a lawnmower cutting grass at the nearby East End Towers filled the air.</p><p>The parking lot would be used by the sheet metal business, the four apartments Dragon wants to make out of the church rectory on Hillard Street and the former Holy Saviour school on Worral Street he proposes to convert into an office building. All three requests for variances in the area zoned residential are on the agenda of the meeting scheduled for 4:30 p.m. in council chambers at City Hall.</p><p>Payne said she was going to circulate a petition this weekend among neighbors asking them to oppose the plans.</p><p>Property records showed PLD Realty LLC paid $140,000 to the Diocese of Scranton in July 2015 for two parcels on Hillard Street and $100,000 in February of this year for two parcels on Worral Street.</p><p>The church that closed in 2014 by the Diocese of Scranton as it consolidated parishes has historical ties to the organized labor movement through the Rev. John J. Curran. Known as the &#8220;Labor Priest,&#8221; Curran was the founding pastor in 1895 of the church and &#8220;championed the workers&#8217; cause and was instrumental in settling the Anthracite Strike of 1902. He was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, who visited here often,&#8221; according to a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker on the Penn Street side of the church.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The former Holy Savior Church on the corner of Hillard and Penn streets in the city&#8217;s East End could be put to a new use as a sheet metal business and some neighbors oppose the plans. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_Church-zoning.jpg</photo0><caption0>The former Holy Savior Church on the corner of Hillard and Penn streets in the city&#8217;s East End could be put to a new use as a sheet metal business and some neighbors oppose the plans. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Planned sheet metal business at former church riles neighbors