May 17 2013

Fiber Optics Headquarters To Occupy New 10-Story Building In Allentown

English: City of Allentown from east side (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

York-based United Fiber & Data will occupy a new 10-story building behind the Butz Corporate Center in the 800 block of Hamilton Street in Allentown.

The building will rise behind the existing Butz structures, and have three floors of parking garage and four stories of office space topped by three stories of apartments and condominiums. It’s a long-planned third phase of the Butz headquarters, located across 9th Street from the PPL tower.

Details are being announced this morning.

From its new Allentown headquarters, United Fiber & Data will run a new 300-mile fiber optics network serving clients from New York to Virginia. The company will occupy a just-completed Butz building on Hamilton until Butz completes the new structure in spring 2015.

May 13 2013

Downtown Pittsburgh Building Boom Shows No Signs Of Letting Up

Pittsburgh Downtown at Night (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The development boom in the city center is showing no signs of abating.

Whether it’s in urban living, where three-quarters of the residents are relative newcomers, or light-rail transit usage, which saw an increase last year thanks to the new North Shore Connector, or reports of yet another hotel in the works, Downtown’s fortunes continue to be on the rise.

At least that appears to be the case based on a new Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership report measuring economic activity in and around the Golden Triangle last year. The “State of Downtown Pittsburgh 2013″ details a number of encouraging trends, from the widely reported bump in residential and office space demand to an increase in the number of building permits issued for improvements last year.

Overall, the partnership counted 60 projects totaling more than $2.2 billion that have been announced or are under construction in the city’s core and fringes, including the 33-story, $400 million Tower at PNC Plaza on Wood Street, which is scheduled to open in the summer of 2015.

May 11 2013

Penn Cinema Partner Plans York Theater

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

Cinema entrepreneur Penn Ketchum is heeding the advice of 19th century American newspaper editor Horace Greeley.

“Go west, young man.”

Ketchum, managing partner of Penn Cinema, intends to develop a small, luxury two-screen movie theater in York city.

But he said Friday that he has no intention of going south into Lancaster city and doing the same kind of project there.

Ketchum’s $750,000 venture in York was disclosed Thursday by York Mayor Kim Bracey in her State of the City address.

May 11 2013

Historic Reading Train Station A Hub Again

Louise Frasso has fond memories of the childhood day trips she would take from Reading by train.

“My grandmother had a pass on the railroad and she would take my siblings and I to Philadelphia,” said the now-86-year-old Muhlenberg Township woman.

All those trips started and ended with the Franklin Street Station in downtown Reading.

The rail and bus hub, which was built in 1930, was still in its infancy when Frasso would travel with her family. It served Berks County for decades before the last train left in 1981 and the station fell into disrepair.

Friday, at a ceremony rededicating the station, Frasso sat grinning ear to ear as she listened to local officials discuss the work that went into restoring it. The station will be a hub for BARTA bus service.

May 10 2013

Mohegan Sun Pocono Downs Plans June 18 Job Fair – Needs To Fill 250 Positions

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

PLAINS TOWNSHIP— With regional unemployment above 9 percent, a job fair in five weeks to fill 250 positions at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs’ soon-to-open hotel/convention center is likely to draw thousands.

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Assistant General Manager Kara Fox-LaRose on Wednesday said rather than just inviting job seekers to send in resumes or applications, the venue will hold an on-site job fair 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 18. Interviews will take place in July and the staff will be hired throughout the summer to be trained, she said.

The $50 million hotel and convention center will have seven floors, 238 hotel rooms, a bistro, a 4,150-square-foot Spa Sapphire, an indoor pool and fitness center and the 20,000-square-foot convention center able to seat 850 people for dinners and other events. It also will be able to hold entertainment events for 1,500 people.

Its targeted opening date is Oct. 1. It will be the largest hotel in Luzerne County and will give the casino the ability to attract customers from farther distances.

May 5 2013

Town By Town: Haddington, A Growing Area In West Philadelphia

English: Map of Philadelphia County highlighting West Philadelphia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There was a time 60th Street in Haddington was called “Real Estate Row,” because of the 22 realty offices that lined both sides of the thoroughfare.

Given the changing fortunes of the housing market, that time has past in many places, not just this nearly one-mile-square chunk of West Philadelphia hugging the Market-Frankford El – which, not surprisingly, was the catalyst for the neighborhood’s birth in 1903 and subsequent growth.

Sandidge & Co., at 40 N. 60th St., is the lone survivor on Real Estate Row, and after 50 years in business, broker E. Paul Sandidge remains “the authority” on real estate in the neighborhood, says Terry Guerra, director of special projects for the nonprofit ACHIEVEability, which has its headquarters in Haddington.

ACHIEVEability owns more than 200 properties throughout Haddington and Cobbs Creek, where its clients live while they complete two- and four-year academic programs to become nurses, social workers, teachers, and computer specialists.

May 4 2013

Baltimore Co. Hopes To Attract Thousands Of Jobs To Sparrows Point

BETHLEHEM STEEL PLANT AT SPARROWS POINT – NARA – 546808 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A new marine terminal could bring 9,000 jobs to the Sparrows Point peninsula, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Friday as he laid out the county’s vision for remaking the land around its closed steel mill.

A terminal in the peninsula’s Coke Point area could take 10 to 12 years to become a reality, he said, and plans depend on the Maryland Port Administration‘s negotiations with the land’s private owners, among other factors. The area has complicated environmental problems, but county leaders say the peninsula offers an exceptional location and the infrastructure to attract new investment.

Kamenetz formed the Sparrows Point Partnership last spring to study how the area’s 3,300 acres could be redeveloped if the steel mill closed, and the group’s recommendations were released Friday. The mill, once the world’s largest and an employer of tens of thousands, laid off the roughly 2,000 workers remaining last year after owner RG Steel declared bankruptcy.

“Even though things looked bleak, we’ve remained optimistic in this county,” Kamenetz said. ”We were determined to overcome this obstacle in order to bring thousands of good jobs back to Sparrows Point.”

May 2 2013

Investors Could Get Tax Credits For Reading Projects

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

Lancaster-based Community First Fund announced Wednesday that it has received $15 million from the federal New Markets Tax Credit program enticing investors to bring jobs to low-income areas, including Reading.

“Those in the New Markets Tax Credit world know how big a deal this is,” Daniel Betancourt, fund president and chief executive, said at a news conference in the offices of Berks County Community Foundation, Third and Court streets.

Betancourt said the award will significantly increase investment in the region’s lowest-income communities, especially Reading.

The Community First Fund, which has an office at 505 Penn St., was among 85 organizations in the nation getting a share of $3.5 billion in this year’s round. There were 282 applicants.

May 2 2013

Perry Township Panel Rejects Preliminary Plans For Industrial Park

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Perry Township residents burst into applause Wednesday night when the township planning commission voted unanimously to deny approval of preliminary plans to turn the Perry Golf Course into an industrial park.

More than 75 residents were packed into the small meeting room for the session, which was preceded by a small-scale demonstration.

Many of those who demonstrated were residents of Zions Church Road, which the developers have planned on using as the entry point for the industrial park.

Several carried signs that urged moving the entrance to the proposed industrial park to Zweizig Road from Zions Church Road.

Matt Clymer, of Key Development Group, Chester County, the group pursuing the industrial park, said the decision wasn’t unexpected.

Apr 29 2013

Conshohocken Retains Its Sense Of Community

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

Forty-nine years ago, Conshohocken leaders began crafting a comprehensive plan to transform the grimy old mill town into a modern, livable municipality, albeit a small one.

At just over one square mile, Conshohocken is shoehorned into a bend of the Schuylkill River, but is within earshot of I-476 and the Schuylkill Expressway, two of the region’s major arteries.

It took several decades, but between the vision of past leaders and the impact of that pair of highways, Conshohocken has become one of the region’s hottest neighborhoods, with sleek condo towers, destination restaurants and corporate headquarters along the waterfront, and a locally owned, family-friendly strip of restaurants, bars, and stores along Fayette Street.

Over the last decade, Conshohocken’s population has grown younger, wealthier and whiter, according to U.S. Census data.

Apr 28 2013

Downtown Wilkes-Barre Putting On A New Face

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

The loud purple facade of the former Flaming Star Tattoos shop will soon be toned down to fit in with the downtown Wilkes-Barre neighborhood’s historical character — a subtle yet significant sign of once-shuttered storefronts being renovated or reopened around the theater complex.

It wasn’t just the color that unsettled city officials who saw the potential for the shop’s row of old architecture on South Main Street. It was the way the vibrant hue stopped midway up the building in an uneven line, accentuating the unfinished progress of the paint job and much of the neighborhood.

“One of the first things the new owners will do is repaint that facade,” said attorney William Vinsko, who bought the building at a Luzerne County back-tax auction for $33,000 last week on behalf of private clients who will be identified when the deed is recorded. The buyers plan to renovate the property at 86 S. Main St. to attract tenants, Vinsko said.

Next door, Joseph and Pamela Masi are redoing the facade and interior of their property, which previously housed Topper’s topless bar, Vinsko said. The Masis, who purchased the property for $85,000 in 2010, have added an ice cream shop at the rear of the property.

Apr 27 2013

Lehigh Valley Planners’ Review Of Costco Shopping Center On Hold

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

The developers planning to bring a $140 million Costco-anchored shopping center to Lower Macungie asked the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Thursday to postpone their formal review of the project to allow them to better explain their traffic improvements.

The sudden change in plans came two days after Lehigh County Commissioner Percy Dougherty told his board that he expected the planners to oppose the project’s traffic plan during their Thursday meeting.

Jeremy Fogel of the Goldenberg Group, one of two developers proposing the shopping center, said Friday that he and partner Tim Harrison of Staten Island wanted to meet with planners before they finalize their review and make recommendations. The shopping center, billed as a center modeled after the Promenade Shops of Saucon Valley, is planned for 63 acres to the east and west of Krocks Road, between Hamilton Boulevard and the Route 222 bypass.

“While they have some information that we submitted to the township, they do not have anywhere close to the full file of information related to transportation issues that has been created during the two-plus years that we have been working with [the state Department of Transportation],” Fogel wrote in an e-mailed response to questions.

Apr 26 2013

Spencer Unveils Bold Plan For Reading

English: Downtown Reading, Pennsylvania; with Berks County courthouse on left; July 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reading Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer on Thursday outlined an ambitious agenda of more than a dozen initiatives, some already begun, to improve the finances and conditions of the city and its neighborhoods.

Speaking to several dozen people attending the Pennsylvania Economy League’s Issues Forum at the Berkshire Country Club in Bern Township, Spencer recounted his campaign themes and said: “Those are the promises; what people expect is performance.”

He then led the audience through a rapid-fire explanation of where the city is and where it’s planning to go in several key areas.

He said the city has set goals for each area and is requiring any department initiatives to match those goals, with their results to be measured.

Apr 25 2013

Allentown Arena Construction On Schedule, Mayor Is Pleased

English: City of Allentown from east side (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Six years ago Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, his city still smarting from losing the Sands casino to Bethlehem, first suggested that an arena might make a fine consolation prize.

Pawlowski on Wednesday, standing at the city’s $272 million arena complex, surrounded by dust and gravel, hard hats and heavy machines, looked downright satisfied.

With construction in full swing, steel and concrete rising from what was once a block of low-end stores and for a time just a muddy hole at Seventh and Hamilton streets, Pawlowski, media in tow, got his first tour of a project that he has been trying to make a reality for most of his time in office.

“It really is amazing when you think about going from the conceptual stage to something that is physically under construction,” Pawlowski said afterward. ”I wanted to show the amount of planning that has really gone into this construction process.”

Apr 20 2013

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Intl. Airport Clears Way For $50M I-81 Project

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport board on Thursday cleared the way for development of a multimillion-dollar access road project.

The board, including the commissioners of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, formally released 16.5 acres of land for the state Department of Transportation to build an access road that will extend from Interstate 81 through the airport property, overpass the Pennsylvania Turnpike and connect to the Grimes Industrial Park in Pittston Township.

“This is a big deal,” Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien said. ”It opens up the west end of the airport for future economic development projects.

Thirteen acres of the land will be used for the access road and the remaining 3.5 acres will be used for reconstruction of the of the airport exit along Interstate 81 in Dupont. The project will combine the Avoca and airport exits into one and move traffic through a series of roundabouts.

Apr 18 2013

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.

Apr 5 2013

Pottstown Welcomes 2 New Businesses, 50 Jobs

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

Editor’s note: Thumbs up to Steve Bamford!

POTTSTOWN — Following on the heels of the news that downtown Pottstown will lose as many as 75 jobs in the coming months, comes the news that the borough may be gaining as many as 58 jobs at two new businesses soon to be break ground.

The news came Wednesday night when borough council heard about two proposals for two new businesses that want to put up new buildings in the borough.

One, known as Patient First, is part of a chain of 43 urgent care medical centers that has been in business for 43 years and promises to bring 50 jobs into the borough.

“We’re looking to hire locally,” said Carl Wright, founder and president of The Wright Group, which will construct the building at the site of the former Chinese food restaurant across the parking lot from Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and Just Cabinets.

http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130404/NEWS01/130409614/pottstown-welcomes-2-new-businesses-50-jobs#full_story

Apr 5 2013

State Adds Extra Money To Reading Hotel Project

The long-planned 220-room Doubletree Convention Center Hotel on Penn Street has received a $500,000 bolster from the state.

The developers, led by retailer Albert R. Boscov, had applied for an additional $2.5 million state grant.

“The governor came in with $3 million,” Boscov said Thursday.

He said the project earlier had been approved for $14 million in grants from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, but the developers applied for more.

Mar 30 2013

Oxford Development Co. Still In Talks With Possible High-Rise Tenants In Downtown Pittsburgh

English: Downtown Pittsburgh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another deadline will come and go without a decision by Oxford Development Co. on whether to build a 33-story skyscraper on Smithfield Street or renovate an existing building there.

Oxford initially had hoped to decide by the end of 2012 before extending the time frame to Sunday, the end of the first quarter.

While Shawn Fox, director of business development for the company, acknowledged that the firm probably won’t meet that deadline either, he added that Oxford is closing in on a decision.

“It’s not going to go that far into the future,” he said.

Mar 28 2013

Allentown Developer Plans Tallest Building In Lehigh Valley

The PPL Building (seen here in the distance) is the tallest building in Allentown, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After decades of spreading out, Allentown could be growing up, its skyline altered by the Lehigh Valley‘s tallest building.

Developer Bruce Loch unveiled plans Wednesday for the 33-story Landmark Tower at Ninth and Walnut streets. The $60-million project would include nearly 200,000 square feet of office, retail and residential space and eclipse the vacant Martin Tower, the former headquarters of Bethlehem Steel and the Valley’s tallest building, by 20 feet.

Loch, an experienced residential builder in the Lehigh Valley with more than $100 million in development under his belt, is making his first foray into this type of project, which he said would be on a lot owned by the Allentown Parking Authority, next to the authority’s garage on Walnut Street.

The property is in the city’s one-of-a-kind Neighborhood Improvement Zone, which allows developers to tap tenants’ state and city taxes, not including property taxes, to finance construction.

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