When Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology officials came to City Hall and asked the city to sell them the former National Guard armory site, Mayor Rick Gray’s answer was “no.”
The armory was an unexpected windfall for the city, but the city needed it badly.
The buildings which had been used to service military vehicles would become a new maintenance garage to replace the city’s crumbling facility.
But, eventually, college officials persuaded Gray an expansion of the technical school was in the best interests of the college and the surrounding neighborhood.