Anyone familiar with the details of the Lancaster County Convention Center and the Pennsylvania Academy of Music will immediately point out that any similarity between the two projects is strictly coincidental.
The former was financed largely with construction bonds guaranteed by county tax payers. The latter was financed with a state grant, private donations, and bank loans secured by guarantees underwitten by private individuals, private foundations, or private companies.
The driving force behind the LCCC, Dale High of High Industries, enriched himself and his company at county tax payer expense. On the other hand PAM founders, Michael Jamanis and Fran Veri, derived no financial benefit from building the $32 million dollar state of the art facility at 42 N. Prince Street apart from the modest salaries they received as President and Dean, respectively.
LCCC developers lied to County officials and the public by claiming to possess a “feasibility study” demonstrating the viability of the LCCC project when in fact all they possessed was a market study for a significantly smaller facility which questioned the feasibility of building a convention center of any size in downtown Lancaster. PAM’s directors never claimed their project would be self-financing. They expected building and operating costs to be covered primarily by private donations (with bank loans secured by guarantees serving as a form of bridge financing).
Sadly, their fund raising efforts came up short, partly due to the current economic crisis which absolutely no one could have predicted prior to the start of construction three years ago. Finally, as LCCC and PAM were developed concurrently and independently of one another, by no stretch of the imagination can one be considered the “precursor” of the other.
It would be interesting to find out how the anticipated amount of contributions for PAM was calculated before construction began. Was it based on past giving, an educated guess, or nothing more than wishful thinking?
Was there ever a feasibility study for the capital campaign? What were its conclusions as to the amount of private funding that could be raised?
How did Union Bank and Ferree Foundation get themselves in such a pickle? Did they do due diligence before making the loans, on which they have taken sizeable write downs?