Lititz Pike Detours Set To Begin May 29

750 mm by 600 mm (30 in by 24 in) Pennsylvania shield, made to the specifications of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), 2003 Edition (sign M1-5). Uses the Roadgeek 2005 fonts. (United States law does not permit the copyrighting of typeface designs, and the fonts are meant to be copies of a U.S. Government-produced work anyway.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lititz Pike motorists will soon be forced to learn some new tricks.

On Wednesday, May 29, PennDOT is implementing the first set of road closings and altered traffic patterns necessitated by construction of a new Route 501 bridge over the Amtrak and Norfolk Southern train tracks.

That means drivers who have been using Route 222/501 for years to enter and exit the city will encounter some major changes in their routine.

McGovern Avenue will be closed from the Lititz Pike to Queen Street.  Consequently, southbound drivers unable to make the right turn onto McGovern Avenue will continue straight, to a new intersection at Liberty Street.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/850759_Lititz-Pike-detours-set-to-begin-May-29.html#ixzz2TfDre4N0

What Lancaster County’s 4 Hospitals Made In Profits In 2012

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The bottom line is starting to look healthier for local hospitals, which saw profits of between $7 million and $65 million in 2012 after some recent lean years.

All four hospitals saw an increase in profits, with two sister hospitals here seeing the biggest leap, according to a new state report.

All of the hospitals also had robust profit margins, according to the report by the Pennsylvania Health Cost Containment Council.

One local hospital official, however, said things might not be as good as they appear, due to the fact that the data included in the report does not include losses from hospital-owned physician practices.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/849894_What-Lancaster-County-s-4-hospitals-made-in-profits-in-2012.html#ixzz2TQB2Ff8W

Hospital Charges A Mystery To Many

If you need hip replacement surgery, you will face a wide range of charges here, depending on the hospital you choose.

Lancaster Regional Medical Center charged the most for major joint replacement surgery, $60,434, of the four hospitals here, according to a recent federal report on 2011 charges.

Across town, Lancaster General Hospital charged the least, $37,761, about $23,000 less than Regional.

But hang on to your crutches, patients.  There’s more.

Though LGH charged the least, Medicare, the federal insurance for the elderly paid it the most of all the hospitals here, $13,400.

Confused yet? Join the club.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/848413_Hospital-charges-a-mystery-to-many.html#ixzz2T2HQPO3o

Amish Experience Halts ‘Amish Mafia Tour’ After Legal Threat

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Hold on chust a minute: “Amish Mafia” fans won’t get to see Lebanon Levi’s “office” or his crew of enforcers’ stomping grounds after all.

Producers of the hit “reality” show have threatened legal action against Bird-in-Hand-based The Amish Experience, which had plans for an extensive tour of the show’s local sites, beginning this month.

Many scenes for the Discovery Channel series — which just wrapped a second season of filming — were shot in Lancaster County.  The tour, its organizer said, would have included a behind-the-scenes glimpse of filming locations while debunking the show’s portrayal of a group of violent Amish protectors.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/847682_Amish-Experience-halts–Amish-Mafia-Tour–after-legal-threat.html#ixzz2Sv2jfUcK

Lancaster City Wants To Be A Haven For Bicyclists

Bicyclists are being welcomed onto Red Rose Transit buses, businesses are opening their doors to bikes or designating parking areas for them, and city officials are considering ways to improve bicycle transportation.

During May, national bike month, efforts are being made around Lancaster city to enhance cycling safety and promote cycling as a form of transportation.

For example, during National Bike to Work Week, May 13-17, RRTA is offering free rides to bicyclists.  They can mount their bikes on the racks on the front of the buses and ride in and out of the city without charge during the work week.

Each rack holds two bikes, RRTA marketing manager Jennifer Boley said.  Additional bikes may be carried in the aisle.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/847168_Lancaster-city-wants-to-be-a-haven-for-bicyclists.html#ixzz2Sl7ekt41

Lititz: Pretzels, Chocolate And History Draw Hip Tourists

Editor’s note:  Awesome write up from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about Lititz!

LITITZ, Lancaster County — “Why did we come here? To eat pretzels, of course!” said Sue Jones of Churchill, who, along with other members of a Pittsburgh bowling team, rolled into the 152-year-old Sturgis Pretzel Bakery and museum during Pretzel Fest 2013.

“I love pretzels — I’m addicted to them,” she laughed.

“But you’ve got to put yellow mustard on them,” added Doris Libell of East Pittsburgh, wearing a Penguins T-shirt.

This community of 9,000 people in northern Lancaster County — recently named Budget Travel’s 2013 Coolest Small Town in America — has a seven-block downtown area crammed with stone and woodbeam houses built in the late 1700s, a pre-Revolutionary War hotel built by Gen. Johann Sutter, a Moravian Protestant church built in 1749, plus several restaurants, taverns and quaint shops selling antiques, books, furniture and much more.

But Lititz is becoming popular with tourists mainly for two things — pretzels and chocolate candy.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/life/travel/lititz-pretzels-chocolate-and-history-draw-hip-tourists-686327/#ixzz2SWP99hOq

Growing Own Produce Helping Lancaster Restaurants Cut Costs

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LANCASTER, PA — If you order a turkey wrap at the Lemon Street Market this summer, or drink a mojito at Lancaster Brewing Co., the tomato on your sandwich and the mint in your drink might have been grown right outside the restaurants.

Six city restaurants are planting tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, herbs and other fresh produce in containers, hanging baskets and small beds.

They plan to harvest the fresh items and serve them to their customers, to promote healthy eating and local products, in a project sponsored by Lancaster city and a local health organization.

“We’ll use the cucumbers in our salads and the basil in sauces,” said Brent Eshelman, general manager of the Lancaster Brewing Co., which is growing plants, including hot peppers for its wing sauce, outside its new 50-seat patio at Walnut and Plum streets.

Rad more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130505/LIFE05/130509996/growing-own-produce-helping-restaurants-cut-costs#full_story

To Stay Open, Hotel Brunswick Must Meet 21 Conditions

It’s time for the Hotel Brunswick in downtown Lancaster to clean up its act, according to a judge’s order signed this morning.

Lancaster County Judge Jeffery Wright approved a series of agreements between the city and hotel owners that would essentially clean up numerous ongoing issues at 151 N. Queen St.

Wright ordered that 21 specific improvements be made or ownership risks a future court hearing that could shutter the hotel, deemed a “nuisance” last year.

The city and district attorney’s office each filed complaints last year alleging the hotel as a site of drug use, brawls and underage drinking.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/845230_To-stay-open–Hotel-Brunswick-must-meet-21-conditions.html#ixzz2SFCC9hVP

Lancaster Bible College Investing Its Trust In Downtown Lancaster

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Trust Performing Arts Center has been open less than a month, but it’s fitting quite nicely into the downtown arts scene.

During its first First Friday, April 5, more than 600 people came to check out the place.  And that makes the folks at the Lancaster Bible College, which runs the Trust, quite happy.

“There’s something very vibrant about downtown Lancaster, and we want our students to be a part of that,” says Robert Bigley, head of the music performance program at Lancaster Bible College.  ”We want them to get out of the church bubble, to get out in the real world.”

Like Millersville University, which runs The Ware Center, located across a parking lot from the Trust, LBC wanted a satellite location that would engage students and audiences apart from the campus.

Coming downtown was the goal.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/842459_LBC-investing-its-Trust-in-downtown-Lancaster.html#ixzz2Rri6xzvW

Why The School District Of Lancaster Is Financially Thriving When Similar Districts In Pennsylvania Are Failing

Times are tough for urban school districts in central Pennsylvania.

Saddled with stagnant tax bases and serving large numbers of low-income and special-needs students, they’re struggling to stay afloat in the face of steep cuts in state and federal education funding.

But School District of Lancaster isn’t experiencing the economic woes of its neighbors.

The school districts in York city and Harrisburg have been declared “financially distressed” by the state, which appointed financial recovery committees to develop radical plans to keep them solvent.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/842996_Why-the-School-District-of-Lancaster-is-financially-thriving-when-similar-districts-in-Pennsylvania-are-failing.html#ixzz2RoBpQLeT

Tourism Officials Hope Casting A Wider Nets Brings More Tourists To Lancaster County

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The county’s tourism promotion board will soon launch a multifaceted campaign it hopes will catch the eye of as many as 100 million people.

It hopes many of of them will come here and spend money.

The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau plans to diversify the $1.6 million it will spend on advertising this year.

In addition to a television commercial that will soon be aired in the Philadelphia and New York markets, the visitors bureau also will buy digital and static billboards to reinforce the same message.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/842667_Tourism-officials-hope-casting-a-wider-nets-brings-more-tourists-to-county.html#ixzz2Rc8YwZ9q

Centralized Jobs Are A Bonus For Lancaster

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Lancaster County has kept an unusually high percentage of its jobs in Lancaster city and suburbs, a new study shows.

The concentration of jobs in the city and suburbs here makes it easier for job-seekers to find work, the study’s author says.

Having centralized jobs also reduces traffic congestion, lowers energy consumption and cuts pollution, she says.

“Generally, we say that more compact forms of development are positive,” said author Elizabeth Kneebone.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/839044_Centralized-jobs-are-a-bonus-for-Lancaster.html#ixzz2QvJnTd3X

Lancaster City Redevelopment Authority Votes To Become Equity Investor In $4.8 Million Apartment Project

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Until recently, when real estate developers wanted an extra financial push to make a city redevelopment project viable, they turned to state officials.

But grant funding through the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development has all but dried up, and competition for the remaining funds is fierce.

On Tuesday, the Lancaster City Redevelopment Authority agreed to step into the gap to make a project happen.

Authority board members voted to become equity investors in a $4.8 million apartment construction project.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/839507_City-redevelopment-authority-votes-to-become-equity-investor-in–4-8-million-apartment-project.html#ixzz2QqlkDQLs

Lancaster General’s $50 Million Project At Former Lancaster Family YMCA Site Moves Forward

After receiving approvals more than a year ago to build a new office building and a parking garage on the former Lancaster Family YMCA site, Lancaster General Health put the brakes on the project.

Now it’s full speed ahead.

Andrew Baldo, vice president of project developer Arcadia Properties, on Wednesday sought and received from the city Planning Commission a waiver of preliminary plan approval requirements.

The waiver allows the $50 million project to skip a step and moves it closer to having all approvals in place by late June.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/839506_Lancaster-General-s–50-million-project-at-former-Lancaster-Family-YMCA-site-moves-forward.html#ixzz2QqkIejI3

‘Coolest Small Town’ Label Bringing More Visitors To Lititz

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So, are new faces showing up in Lititz these days, checking out the “Coolest Small Town in America?”

“I voted — that’s why you won,” laughed Rose Anne Manfredi of Long Island, N.Y., Sunday afternoon as she and her husband, Ron, both 62, strolled through Lititz Springs Park.

The couple was staying in Ephrata 25 years ago. Needing a place to eat, they thumbed through a phone book and thought the General Sutter Inn sounded interesting.

They fell in love with Lititz and have been making annual pilgrimages ever since.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/838088_-Coolest-Small-Town–label-bringing-more-visitors-to-Lititz-.html#ixzz2QYUFaizs

Another Power Outage Hits Downtown Lancaster

Another power outage affected much of downtown Lancaster city and parts of southern Manheim Township Monday morning.

More than 10,000 residents and businesses lost power for a short time starting at 8:49 a.m., PPL spokesman John Levitski said.

“The Prince Street substation went out again,” said Levitski.  ”We are trying to determine what the issues are down there.

“We’re going to try to dig into this a little deeper to discover what’s going on,” he said.  ”Then we can determine if (the outages) are linked or not.”

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/838220_Another-power-outage-hits-downtown-Lancaster.html#ixzz2QYRqttCj

Lancaster Convention Center Sews Up Quilt Show For 3 More Years

Quilting is a tradition in Lancaster County and organizers of the annual downtown Lancaster quilt show hope to sew up that link between quilting and Lancaster.

The Paducah, Ky.-based American Quilters Society on Wednesday announced it would continue the show at the Lancaster County Convention Center for another three years.

The deal was inked a month ago when some 16,500 quilters attended AQS QuiltWeek in Lancaster.

The national organization called the fourth annual show and convention a success.  That attendance figure represents an 11 percent increase over 2012.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/837065_Convention-Center-sews-up-quilt-show-for-3-more-years.html#ixzz2QH8D8T4b

Amtrak Reports Increase In Ridership On Keystone Line, Says Lancaster Is Third-Busiest Station In State

Ridership on Amtrak’s Keystone line through Lancaster County grew by 5.2 percent in the last six months, the nation’s passenger railroad corporation announced Tuesday.

Amtrak has 13 trains each weekday stopping at the Lancaster, Mount Joy and Elizabethtown stations on the Keystone line and nine weekend trains.  The Keystone line carries passengers between Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

The Keystone carried 723,461 passengers in the first half of the fiscal year, compared to 687,860 during the same period last year.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/836140_Amtrak-reports-increase-in-ridership-on-Keystone-line–says-Lancaster-is-third-busiest-station-in-state.html#ixzz2QAEZu4bn

Flower & Craft Warehouse In Blue Ball Closing

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Flower & Craft Warehouse, which draws thousands of shoppers from across the region, is closing.

The sizable Blue Ball store, established in 1991, is seeking a license from East Earl Township to hold a going-out-of-business sale.

“They’re definitely closing,” said Connie Gross, the township’s secretary-treasurer and office manager. “Their verbiage to us was, ‘This is it.’ “

According to Gross, the 196 Broad Street store first contacted the township for a license about two weeks ago.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/833836_Flower—Craft-Warehouse-in-Blue-Ball-closing.html#ixzz2PbPwKHff

Lancaster County Jobless Rate Drops in February

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lancaster County’s unemployment rate slipped to 6.8 percent in February, the state Department of Labor & Industry said Tuesday.

By declining slightly from January’s 6.9 percent, the county’s rate remained among the best in Pennsylvania.

Of the state’s 14 metropolitan areas, only State College (6.0 percent) and Lebanon (6.7 percent) had better unemployment rates.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had the worst, at 9.8 percent.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/833506_County-jobless-rate-drops-in-Feb-.html#ixzz2PLlDgtjp