CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA BUSINESS JOURNAL: … As part of a complex financing deal brokered this summer, the Lancaster CRIZ Authority agreed to spend $5 million for Lancaster County Convention Center furniture, fixtures and equipment over seven years…
The Hotel Lancaster, which is the only project awarded a CRIZ boost so far.
“It’s a property that was not generating any revenue in 2013 until the very end of the year,” [City Planner Randy] Patterson says of the hotel, which developer John Meeder and three partners leased and began operating then. In January, Meeder said 66 of the hotel’s 221 rooms were open; now the number’s up to 134, and the CRIZ boost will help complete the first phase of the project, which centers on opening the rest and acquiring the hotel building…
Patterson says there are no significant changes to report on the other five projects listed on the CRIZ first-phase prospectus. They are an entertainment center adjacent to The Hotel Lancaster; turning the Bulova building into retail and office space…
will
EDITOR: What a tragedy for the City of Lancaster, all willfully brought on by the current administration headed by Mayor Rick Gray and Patterson.
1) The CRIZ program diverts the real estate tax income stream that belongs to future generations to private interests today. Special establishment interests figuratively eat our chlldren’s lunch.
2) The former Hilton Hotel, later Ramada, then Brunswick could have been purchased a year ago by the City for a fraction of what is being paid for it out of CRIZ money.
3) The former Hess Department Store, Bulova explosive factory (if the public had ever known the danger!), is in bankruptcy court and could have been purchased for a small price since it has little commercial value. The entire block, apart from the parking garage, could then have been sold to a residential developer for condominiums. The idea of turning it into an entertainment center with bowling allies seems especially far fetch.
Rather than turning Lancaster Square East into the showcase of downtown Lancaster, it is being kept on life support by massive infusion of public taxpayer money.
If the Hotel Lancaster does poorly, the public money invested will go down the drain. If enough is spent to turn it into a true competitor for the Marriott, both hotels will likely be in trouble given the small downtown market except for a score of big Convention Center events during the year.
Despite requests for about two years, Patterson would not even discuss alternative plans with NewsLanc’s publisher, a prominent commercial real estate developer.
