STEWARTSTOWN, Pa. (WHTM) — With the fire still smoldering — and with the investigation into what caused it just beginning — the developer who owns the former factory that burned Saturday morning said he can’t speak about the fire but “would like to stay committed” to plans for luxury apartments on the site.

Reached Monday evening, Jordan Ilyes — whose company owns the Stewartstown Furniture Co. factory and whose previous projects included transforming a long-vacant Hanover warehouse into luxury apartments and a restaurant — said because of the ongoing investigation into the six-alarm fire, he can’t say much about the property, which he planned to preserve and renovate into luxury housing.

But the Stewartstown “community’s been really, really good to me, and I would like to stay committed to the project,” Ilyes said.

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Still, with much of what was supposed be preserved in the renovation having burned, Ilyes said the project “is definitely going to change.”

Fire and police investigators haven’t speculated publicly on a cause, but the Southern Regional Police Department said earlier it’s “asking anyone in Stewartstown with cameras to check for any suspicious activity, to include people on foot or suspicious vehicles” between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

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Leaders have said the fire was the worst in the borough’s history, which dates to 1767. According to various online sources, the furniture factory opened in 1903, and its heyday was long ago. Local firefighters have said they long feared a fire like the one that started Saturday.

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