Re: Downtown Wilkes-Barre hotel to become dormitory
In hindsight, I wonder how many of the power elite now wish that HACC had taken over the Watt & Shand building?? At the very least there would be much more daily downtown foot traffic from students/faculty who could also eat and shop downtown.
If a convention center was needed the Hilton/Ramada/Brunswick could have adequately served the needed rooms and renovations to other empty downtown facilities within the same block could have made a viable convention center.
Whoops….PSP would not need to exist!!!!!
EDITOR : Right on. But from our perspective, we would take another step.
PAM (Pennsylvania Academy of Music) was terribly mismanaged by its board of directors under Chairman Paul Ware. It failed to perform its responsibility to provide sound business oversight but instead embarked on extragant and foolhardy measures.
Yet we believe that the PAM concept could and would have succeeded had the school had instead been housed in the former Brunswick Annex and floors of the hotel been converted to dormitories in stages.
Ironically, the former PAM building is now called the Ware Center, albeit most of the funding ultimately came from the state and others.
Perhaps Dale High will yet exercise his special rights to place his name on the Convention Center, thus following the precedent.
And to complete the process of honoring ineptitude, it would be appropriate for the Bulova Building, after its dubious conversion to a mixed use entertainment center, to be named after Mayor Rick Gray and City Planner Randy Patterson.
I don’t think any of the power elite would feel differently. The most powerful and elitist of themm all, High and LNP, are riding this project all the way to the bank. You and I know better and know what would have actually helped downtown but that would not have enriched PSP.