Pennsylvania Statutes Title 53 P.S. Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations § 1141. Power of cities to purchase land for municipal buildings or purposes, for present or future use

The several cities of this commonwealth shall have power to acquire by purchase any real estate, within the city limits, which they may need, upon which to erect and construct necessary municipal buildings, fire engine houses, gas and electric light works, and, within or without the city limits, within the same county, sufficient real estate, for present and future use, upon which to erect workhouses or houses of detention, hospitals, waterworks, poorhouses, for the purpose of a poor farm, garbage and incinerating furnaces, and sewage disposal works, or plants with the necessary filter-beds, appliances, drains, and sewers, and for any extensions thereof;  and in case they cannot agree with the owner or owners as to the price thereof, or in case the owner or owners thereof are absent, or are incapacitated from any cause, or are unknown, by reason of which no agreement can be made it shall be lawful for each respective city, and the same is hereby authorized and empowered, to take and appropriate, for any of the said purposes and any extensions thereof, all such necessary and sufficient real estate, within or without the city limits, as the case may be, after an ordinance shall have been passed providing for such taking and appropriation.