Alliance Aims To Transform Vacant Parcel In St. Clair To Include Townhouses, Urban Farming

The site of a former public housing complex in St. Clair might become the home of a residential community that could fund one of the largest urban farms in the country, nonprofit officials said.

“It’s definitely a significant plan, but it’s not going to be easy,” said Aaron Sukenik, executive director of the Hilltop Alliance, which wants to redevelop the site and operate the farm.

The Housing Authority of the city of Pittsburgh demolished the 61-year-old St. Clair Village public housing complex in 2010 as it sought to reshape the look of public housing in the city to a model that had less-dense communities and more mixed incomes.

The Hilltop Alliance wants to turn the vacant, 107-acre parcel into Hilltop Village Farm, which would include 120 for-sale and rental townhouses, as well as an urban farm using about 20 acres for a farm incubator, youth farm and community-supported agriculture farm, or CSA.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7413350-74/farm-housing-hilltop#ixzz3MeUTxCjn
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Pittsburgh’s Hill District Revitalization Project Hits Financial Hurdle In TIF

A plan to revitalize the Hill District and Uptown with tax money from a redeveloped Civic Arena site is more complicated than envisioned, say officials who hope to make public a proposal in January.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” said Robert Rubinstein, acting executive director of Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, which is crafting a plan to pay for improvements.

An agreement reached this fall by city, neighborhood and Pittsburgh Penguins officials established conditions for the proposed $440 million project. The hockey team won the development rights to the site in a 2007 deal to build Consol Energy Center.

Among conditions in September’s agreement, the parties will borrow as much as $50 million, then use 65 percent of the anticipated increase in property tax money from the 28-acre site to pay for improvements and programs in the Hill and Uptown.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7391701-74/development-money-tax#ixzz3MeT4WOtz
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Garfield Residents Plan Rally Over Bottom Dollar Site

Discount grocer Aldi is ignoring a community development group’s request for information on the future of one of the stores it is acquiring from a competitor, representatives of the group said.

The Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. plans to lead a rally Monday requesting that Aldi share its plan for the 6-month-old Bottom Dollar Food store at 5200 Penn Ave. in Garfield that will close by the end of the year.

“We want it to remain a grocery store so that our neighbors have access to food,” said Sarah Burke, communications and marketing manager for the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp.

In November, Belgium-based Delhaize Group announced that it planned to close its 66 Bottom Dollar Food stores, including the 20 in the Pittsburgh area, by the end of the year and sell the real estate and remaining lease liabilities for $15 million to Aldi Inc., which operates more than 1,300 stores in the United States.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7413662-74/bottom-dollar-garfield#ixzz3MeRfMLhQ
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Lancaster And Akron Host New Year’s Eve Celebrations

Get ready to celebrate.

You can ring out the old and in the new this New Year’s Eve in a variety of ways.

Downtown Lancaster will welcome 2015 with the traditional ascension of the Red Rose Dec. 31 at Binn’s Park.

But before the countdown, the crowd will be entertained by Philly band Swift Technique, beginning at 10 p.m.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/features/entertainment/lancaster-and-akron-host-new-year-s-eve-celebrations/article_19ed668a-847a-11e4-b1fc-eb99777c6faf.html

Movement Underway In NEPA Counties, Cities To Form Land Banks

When General Motors shut down factories in Michigan, the city of Flint lost more than 70,000 auto industry jobs, resulting in an exodus of residents from the 1980s through today that left the city with half the population of its heyday.

The crisis created a cycle of abandonment and blight that prompted the region to create the Genesee County Land Bank, which spearheaded several major redevelopment projects in the city’s downtown, sold 4,683 tax-foreclosed properties from 2004-13 and demolished 3,400 buildings.

Some public officials in Northeastern Pennsylvania cities like Scranton and Hazleton have been thinking of forming their own land banks since Gov. Tom Corbett last year signed legislation enabling cities around the state to do so. Pittston and several neighboring Luzerne County municipalities recently created their own version.

“One issue we all face, that we really have a hard time fighting at the municipal level, is blight,” said Larry West, regional director for state Sen. John Blake, D-Archbald. “We have buildings sitting there on the tax repository list that are boarded up or have burned down.”

Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/movement-underway-in-nepa-counties-cities-to-form-land-banks-1.1806370

DuPont Co. Leaving Wilmington

DuPont Co. says it is consolidating its headquarters offices, located since the World War I era in a high-rise complex fronting the north side of Rodney Square in the heart of Wilmington, to the company’s suburban Chestnut Run Plaza complex west of the city, effective July 1.

NEW: The company plans to move between 800-1,000 workers from the DuPont Building out to Chestnut Run; another 800-1,000 will remain, for the time being, with DuPont’s Performance Chemicals business, spokesman Daniel A. Turner told me. DuPont is spinning off that unit as part of a new company, Chemours (they say it “KEM-oars”), which has not yet chosen a permanent headquarters. Company statement here.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/DuPont-pulling-HQ-out-of-Wilmington.html#XDMgTWZSU6ZmDILo.99

The Mushroom Drop Returns For New Year’s Eve

KENNETT SQUARE, PA – After a successful debut on New Year’s Eve 2013, the great Mushroom Drop will return this year to greet 2015.

The huge fungus made of lights will descend from a crane at the corner of State and Union streets at midnight.

Last year thousands of people arrived for the event that included food, music and all the enthusiasm of Times Square. Chairman Kathi Lafferty expects nothing less this year.

This event is free with the request that guests bring a can of food that will be contributed to the Kennett Square Food Cupboard.

Read more: http://www.dailylocal.com/general-news/20141221/the-mushroom-drop-returns-for-new-years-eve