By Robert Field, Publisher Few things have brought me as much joy recently than the announcement that the Steinman family is donating LNP to the WITF Public Foundation. I was also pleased when the Steinmans exited their half ownership of the Marriott Hotel, thus freeing itself from the sordid recent past. Newspapers throughout the country, […]
Category: Convention Center Series
Lancaster County Convention Center Authority Investigative Series by Jim Sneddon
REF: Charlie Smithgall is in ‘Cannon Heaven’
An LNP article reports the death of Charlie Smithgall, Lancaster’s long time pharmacist, former mayor, and a unique and unforgettable individual. I only got to know Charlie during his two attempts for re-election at which time I was a significant funder and a would be political adviser. Upon my arrival at his house, he would […]
Great news for NewsLanc and the history of Lancaster
Spread over the next few months, we will be adding to our NewsLanc web site the recently discovered articles that predated June, 2009 that were lost during the change over to the Word Press format . For any student or historian interested in Lancaster history, the early years of reporting on NewsLanc will be especially […]
REF: When Fascism came to Lancaster County
I recently encountered professor Timothy Snyder of Yale on MSNBC and ordered his very short book “On Tyranny”. For over sixty years I have tried to learn the meaning of “fascism”. I now understand my difficulties since it is more like a creeping cancer than an alternative form of government and, as we saw with […]
DOWNTOWN LANCASTER: I would have done it differently but…
By Robert Field, Editor and Publisher A lot of improvements have taken place in downtown Lancaster, some spurred by greed, politics and OPM (Other People’s Money). I had the extraordinary good fortune as a successful real estate developer early in my career. Everything with a single exception was done with conventional financing or our own funds. […]
How a last minute obscure insertion into the 2016 omnibus tax bill gave Penn Square Partners a $3.4M gift
Through Pennsylvania’s Right to Know law, NewsLanc has obtained correspondence among the City, Penn Square Partners, High Realty, government authorities, and pertinent others pertaining to Penn Square Partner’s CRIZ application for the proposed Marriott Tower addition. 1998: “Penn Square Partners, headed by the High Real Estate Group, announced this morning that it has signed papers to acquire […]
Dick Shellenberger, a leader of good character, RIP
By Robert Field Statements in the below obituary of Dick Shellenberger are shameful and we blame the editors and publisher of LNP for allowing and likely encouraging the almost decade long distortions. This was an opportunity to imply “mea culpa” for their long going, self serving, no holds barred role in the Lancaster Convention Center […]
REF speaks: The fall of Lancaster
By Robert Field David Schuyler’s book published in 2002 * on the process of redevelopment of downtown Lancaster some fifty years ago describes the largely unsuccessful effort at the time to protect downtown Lancaster as the core retail center from attempts to develop suburban shopping centers. The result of the regional ‘understanding’ was the ultimate […]
LETTER: “The fix was in, and the people are still paying for it”
The contributor refers to Bill Keisling’s and NewsLanc’s forthcoming book on decades of corruption in Pennsylvania: I hope your 50 corruptions include the downtown Lancaster project. That $200 million albatross is about to grow in cost. And that dumb project — a bad idea from its inception — has paid exactly zero property taxes. Not […]
Is Marriott Hotel’s expansion throwing good tax payer money after bad?
Note that the only discussion is what additional hotel rooms will do on the relatively rare days that major Convention Center activities might require more rooms than the 300 of the Marriott and the projected fully modernized (largely at city taxpayer risk) 224 +/- of the Lancaster Hotel (formerly the Brunswick.) There is no Feasibility Study mentioned determining whether there is a market for the additional 96 rooms.
Will AG Kane next investigate Lancaster Convention Center ‘miracle’?
“Lancaster city Mayor Rick Gray announced a plan Thursday to keep alive a hotel/convention center project by plugging a $20 million funding gap.”
KEISLING: Harrisburg bond debt criminal probe serves as wake-up call to Lancaster and other municipal officials
In Lancaster, for example, a string of failed financings and re-financings related to the city’s Convention Center raises similar disturbing questions.
Convention Center Series Index
Chapter 1: Beginnings- Revised Chapter 2: Dream Team- Revised Chapter 3: Helping Hands in Harrisburg- Revised Chapter 4: The Deception Begins- Revised Chapter 5: The Hotel Room Taxes- Revised Chapter 6: Razing History- Revised Chapter 7: The Convention Center Grows- Revised Chapter 8: The Fight Intensifies- Revised Chapter 9: All Out War- Revised Chapter 10: […]
Honoring those who challenged the Convention Center Project
Below are NewsLanc’s nominees for a Convention Center Project Honor Roll of individuals and institutions who exposed to considerable risk and criticism by challenging the feasibility of the project as gleaned from Newslanc’s Convention Center Series.