York’s Northeast Neighborhood Residents Wonder What Impact Think Loud Will Have On Their Community

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

On a wooden table in Gregg Hardy’s kitchen are a handful of cherry tomatoes.

They come from the garden behind his East Walnut Street home that his wife tends, caring for fish in a small pond and cultivating an orange tree, where a single unripe fruit hung one day in August.

While she will spend a day coaxing flowers to grow, Hardy focuses his own labor on the interior — putting in bathrooms, widening door frames and shaping cabinets.

He bought his home for $15,000 in 2003, property records show. He said he put $20 down on it, and spent several years driving down from New York on weekends to fix it up. He is now entrenched in a neighborhood he believes has remade itself into an area families can call home.

Read more: http://www.ydr.com/local/ci_26386670/yorks-northeast-neighborhood-residents-wonder-what-impact-think

As Developer Buys Up York Neighborhood, Some Residents Refuse To Sell

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

The CEO of several companies buying dozens of homes in a York City neighborhood said he will not use eminent domain to acquire more properties, though he believes he “absolutely” could.

Bill Hynes, known locally for his business relationship with members of the rock band Live and their Think Loud Development projects, said the goal is to own all of the properties on the northern side of East Chestnut Street.

Nearby, Hynes and his business partners are in the midst of a $16.8 million project to renovate a former factory at 210 York St. After that project is done, work will begin on the construction of a 40,000-square-foot data center — at an anticipated cost of $30 million — for United Fiber and Data, a fiber optic company with plans to build an information-transmission line between New York and northern Virginia.

Read more: http://www.yorkdispatch.com/ci_26256192/developer-buys-up-york-neighborhood-some-residents-refuse

Wiring For Pottstown Schools Renovation Could Cost $375,000

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

POTTSTOWN — You can add new data system wiring to the things not included in the $14 million price tag for renovation and expansion of three elementary schools in the borough.

Thursday night, school board Vice President Robert Hartman Jr., who is also the chairman of the board’s facilities committee, reported that his committee is recommending the additional spending of as much as $375,000 “for data wiring devices installation at Franklin, Lincoln and Rupert elementary schools” according to the agenda of Thursday’s meeting.

There was no discussion among the full board, or questions asked by any of the board members, so it was not immediately clear why this was not included in the budget for the broader expansion/renovation project.

Work began this summer on the renovations and expansion at the three schools, while work is now being completed at Barth Elementary School, where work began a year earlier.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130816/NEWS01/130819430/wiring-for-pottstown-schools-renovation-could-cost-375-000#full_story

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.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-allentown-niz-butz-fiber-optic-20130517,0,5580943.story