Allegiant Air Wants To Run Lancaster-To-Orlando Flights

English: This is a photo of an Allegiant MD-83 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A discount airline wants to provide nonstop jet service between Lancaster and Orlando — if the local airport authority pays its expenses here.

Allegiant Air has contacted the Lancaster Airport Authority to express interest in flying the route twice a week.

“It’s not as glamorous as it might appear,” David Eberly, airport director, said.

“They’re in a lot of smaller communities like Lancaster, and they don’t want to pay the community anything.”

In a separate development, the authority has asked the federal government to subsidize daily service to a new city on a new carrier.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/655489_Airline-wants-to-run-Lancaster-to-Orlando-flights.html#ixzz1wBAcSWfK

Lehigh Valley Housing Market Continues To Rebound

The Lehigh Valley housing market continued to rebound in April, with sales and prices up from a year ago.

A total of 466 homes sold in April in Lehigh and Northampton counties, up 24.9 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the Prudential Patt, White Real Estate HomExpert Market Report. The median sale price was $170,000, up 6.3 percent from a year ago and up 8.4 percent from the median sale price in March.

April was the tenth consecutive month of year-to-year sales increases and it was the second straight month of price increases. If the sales pace and price trends holds, it will mean the local housing market bottomed out last year.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-home-sales-april-20120521,0,518533.story

Reading Air Charter Offers Flights For Business Or Pleasure

Reading Airport, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Contrary to public perception, the Reading Regional Airport is not closed to air traffic.

It’s true that the airport lost its scheduled commuter service in 2004, but a local charter service is attempting to re-establish flights at the airport.

On Saturday, Reading Air Charter unveiled its new central office at the Reading Regional Airport terminal.

Its operations were previously on the North Ramp, next to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, where it continues to have a maintenance facility and school of flight.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=387462

Boscov’s To Open Pair Of Stores

The southwest entrance facade of Woodbridge Mall. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Boscov’s Department Store said Thursday that it will open two new department stores, one in New Jersey and one in Maryland, over the next year and a half.

A planned 180,000-square-foot store in New Jersey’s Woodbridge Center mall, Woodbridge, will open in August 2013, while Maryland’s White Marsh Mall will get a 197,000-square-foot store in November, according to a Boscov’s news release.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=386979

5 Most Damaged Brands Right Now

A conservative, a liberal, a country, a football team and a car make up the list!

See the list: http://money.msn.com/investing/5-most-damaged-brands-right-now

Bank Of America Closes Lancaster City Branch

Bank of America closed its Penn Square branch last Friday, ending eight years of operation there.

Bank of America had acquired the Griest Building branch through its 2004 purchase of FleetBoston Financial.

Griest Building owner Rob Ecklin said two other banks have expressed interest in opening in the 4,100-square-foot location.

“I’m hopeful of getting another bank in there, but I just don’t know. It’s too early to tell,” Ecklin said.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/641057_Bank-of-America-closes-Lancaster-city-branch.html#ixzz1uKScUYck

Pottstown Walmart Supercenter Taking Shape

Location of Pottstown in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

POTTSTOWN, PA  - By the end of summer, the Pottstown Walmart store is going to be a whole lot bigger.

In fact, it’s going to be super.

For the past four months, construction crews have been working on the expansion of the Walmart store in the Pottstown Center, Route 100 and Shoemaker Road, into a Supercenter. In addition to work being done inside and outside the store to grow the Walmart by 55,000 square feet into a SuperCenter - basically a Walmart that includes a full grocery store – the shopping center’s parking lot is also under construction.

That will mean 55,000 square feet of new construction will be added to Pottstown’s tax rolls after the property is reassessed when the construction is complete.

Read more: http://business-news.thestreet.com/the-times-herald/story/pottstown-walmart-supercenter-taking-shape-3/1

Cops: Theft Of Scrap Metal Becoming An Epidemic

Cops: Theft of scrap metal becoming an epidemic

The cases make the news with frequency.

Last month, a thief stole copper piping from a Moosic Street home owned by the wife of the late former Scranton Police Chief James Klee.

There are houses that have flooded when thieves tore out copper piping. A man whose electrocuted body was found under a utility pole in Wright Twp. was killed trying to steal aluminum from power lines.

In November, Dunmore police arrested a Scranton man who twice broke into a PPL Electric Utilities plant on Larch Street to steal copper wire.

Police say that scrap-metal thefts have become an “epidemic” that is hard to fight.

Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cops-theft-of-scrap-metal-becoming-an-epidemic-1.1308108#ixzz1tXMxrKVO

UGI Plans Big Project In Lancaster City

UGI Utilities will upgrade more than two miles of underground gas main in Lancaster city starting Monday, April 30.

The $1.3 million project, to be completed in mid-July, will insert high-density plastic pipe inside cast-iron pipe that’s as much as a century old.

Targeted are gas mains resting three to four feet under Orange Street and New Holland Avenue.

“When it was installed, it was state-of-the-art. But it’s served its purpose.  All these years later, plastic is the way to go,” UGI’s Mike Fessler said.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/631150_UGI-plans-big-project-in-Lancaster-city.html#ixzz1si9AJMdt

McDonald’s $3.5 Million Redo In Sinking Spring

Editor’s note:  Now this is being a good neighbor!  Two Roy’s Rants thumbs up!

The 39-year-old McDonald’s restaurant in Sinking Spring is being razed this week, and a brand-new McDonald’s should be completed by July 15.

The $3.5 million project is a joint venture of McDonald’s Corp. and the private investment of Robert Hughes, owner of the Sinking Spring McDonald’s for the past nine years and owner of three others in the area.

Hughes has included a pocket park in his plans. The park will have benches and outdoor seating for McDonald’s customers, but anyone will be able to use the park, Hughes said.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=379434

City Of Reading Hires Montgomery County Firm For Payroll

At Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer’s request, City Council on Monday awarded data processing giant ADP a $214,100 contract to take over the city’s payroll operations.

The move will get rid of an error-prone, in-house system for which the IRS has fined the city more than $100,000.

“We’re not payroll experts; we’re getting out of the business,” said Christopher Zale, acting director of administrative services.

The IRS fines - $50,400 each for tax years 2007 and 2008 because the city’s W-2 forms weren’t compatible with IRS computers, and weren’t re-filed properly until months after the deadline – were levied in 2010.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=378811

Reading Mayor Tags Along With Quality-Of-Life Inspectors

A 1947 topographic map of the Reading, Pennsylvania area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer tailed Reading’s quality-of-life inspectors Thursday along West Douglass Street to learn how they determine whether properties are violating city regulations on such items as high grass or trash buildup.

City inspectors issued 46 citations for conditions including improper trash receptacles, weeds, litter and other violations during the sweep through the neighborhoods around the 100 block of West Douglass.

“And that was just the two to three hours that they were out there this morning,” said Marisol Torres, assistant to the mayor.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=378189

Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority May Use Natural Gas To Power Fleet

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

The Lancaster County waste authority may become a booster in getting the owners of more local vehicles to switch their trucks from running on diesel to cheaper and cleaner domestic natural gas.

The Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority is exploring whether it makes dollar sense to replace its aging fleet of 15 trash transfer tractors with new models that run on compressed natural gas.

Moreover, the authority has contacted several dozen private trash haulers in the county about similarly making the switch.

If there’s enough interest, the authority would contemplate building a natural-gas filling station for public use by anyone with a compressed natural-gas vehicle.

It likely would be the county’s first natural gas filling station and probably would be built at the authority’s Harrisburg Pike headquarters.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/616941_Switching-on-the-gas-.html#ixzz1r1l7ZLOW

Best Buy To Close 50 Stores

Logo of Best Buy, US-based retail chain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Best Buy Company posted weaker-than-expected sales for the key holiday quarter and said it would close 50 large U.S. stores, sending shares of the world’s largest consumer electronics chain down 9 percent on Thursday.

Analysts and investors expected more aggressive restructuring efforts from the chain, whose large-format stores have often been termed “white elephants.”

While most industry insiders welcomed Best Buy’s decision to reduce its retail footprint at a time when many shoppers buy their gadgets online, they expected the retailer would have done more.

Read more: http://business-news.thestreet.com/the-mercury/story/best-buy-close-50-stores/1

PPL Eyes Hike Of 6.3% On Average

The last year has been pretty sweet for PPL Electric Utilities customers.

PPL has cut its rates five times because it’s been able to obtain power at ever-cheaper prices and pass those better deals onto its customers.

But while the cost of obtaining power accounts for about two-thirds of the total bill, there’s a smaller, yet significant chunk.

It’s the cost of delivering that power to your door.

And now PPL wants to charge extra for providing that service, enough to negate some of that recent relief.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/615869_PPL-eyes-hike-of-6-3–on-average.html#ixzz1qqSDdRen

Weis Markets In Muhlenberg Township To Shut Down

Image via Wikipedia

Weis Markets, 3240 Fifth Street Highway, Muhlenberg Township, will close on April 14.

More than 50 full and part-time associates were informed of the closing and will be offered positions at other area Weis locations, said Dennis V. Curtin, director of corporate communications for Weis.

Curtin said the store is closing for business reasons and that it had been underperforming for some time.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=370695

North Carolina Businesses Along I-95 Tally Tolling Impact

Image via Wikipedia

Editor’s note:  $19.20 to drive across North Carolina and gas is more than $3.50 a gallon!  This will push more people to trains, buses and airplanes OR onto alternate routes.

Plans to charge a toll on Interstate 95 in North Carolina will make it more difficult for businesses to quickly and cheaply ship goods up and down the East Coast’s chief thoroughfare, critics say.

North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri all are considering tolls as a way to pay for expanding and upgrading interstates. Supporters say drivers from other states will pay much of the costs.

But like most highways, I-95 is itself a hub of businesses drawn to the asphalt link to markets from Maine to Florida.

Food Lion, Wal-Mart, and Lowe’s are some of the companies with North Carolina distribution centers, each employing hundreds of workers, near the highway. The world’s largest hog slaughterhouse operated by Smithfield Foods and one of the nation’s largest food-service distributors for restaurant chains built near the interstate.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/ap/602081_NC-businesses-along-I-95-tally-tolling-impact.html#ixzz1ojH6dDfe

GoggleWorks Apartment Project Uses An Unusual Steel Framing Process

Image via Wikipedia

The wraps on the new GoggleWorks apartments on Washington Street in Reading will be long gone by early summer. In the meantime, the $16.7 million building remains swathed in plastic to keep workers warm.

The plastic also has been covering up an unusual construction process based on a metal framing system. Instead of a typical structural steel framework filled in with masonry blocks and wooden planks, it has prefabricated metal framing and walls that stack in place made by ClarkDietrich Building Systems, an Ohio-based provider of steel construction products and services.

Eric Burkey, president of Reading-based Burkey Construction Co., the project’s general contractor, said the walls are set in place and the cold-formed steel joists and metal deck are set before the walls are placed on the floor above. The wall panels literally sit one on top of the other and carry through the overall height of the building.

“This kind of system has been around for a while,” Burkey said. “It just hasn’t been used a lot.”

Read more: http://businessweekly.readingeagle.com/?p=2331

UGI Energy To Be Part Of $1 Billion Pipeline

Spring Township-based UGI Energy Services Inc. has joined with Inergy Midstream LP and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp. to market and develop a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline known as the commonwealth pipeline.

The proposed 200-mile, 30-inch pipeline is expected to be in service by 2015.

Inergy Midstream, Kansas City, Mo., will build and operate the pipeline and be funded equally by the companies.

UGI Energy Services and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp., a subsidiary of WGL Holdings Inc., Washington D.C., are expected to execute the agreements to become anchor shippers on the line.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=368689

New PAID Director Relishes Challenge Of Urban Economic Development

Editor’s note:  90 days into a new job and he scores!  Color me impressed!

POTTSTOWN, Pa. - When your job is to try to attract businesses to a particular place, having a sense of place is pretty important.

So it´s probably a good thing that Steve Bamford has a boatload of real estate experience to call upon in his role as executive director of the Pottstown Area Industrial Development, also known as PAID Inc.

More than two years ago, the Urban Land Institute recommended, among other things, that economic development be taken out of the hands of the politicians and put into the hands of a professional staff. The result was a re-imagining of the largely moribund PAID organization into an active economic development arm with a responsibility sharing agreement between the borough, the school district and the Montgomery Redevelopment Authority.

Read more: http://business-news.thestreet.com/the-mercury/story/new-paid-director-relishes-challenge-urban-economic-development/1