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Tag: project

Main Street Gettysburg gets grant for Façade Improvement Program

Main Street Gettysburg has received a $50,000 Keystone Community Grant to further support its Façade Improvement Program that helps rehabilitate commercial buildings in Gettysburg’s historic downtown district.

The nonprofit organization applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for the grant, which is from the Keystone Communities Program.

This is the fourth round of the façade grant program. The first three administered by Main Street Gettysburg provided grants for 26 projects, distributing $80,000 that generated $276,111 total in investments.

Basic guidelines include:

· Buildings must be within the historic district of Gettysburg.

· Applications must include project descriptions and estimates.

· Only projects on the application are eligible.

· Projects must be approved by the Historic Architecture Review Board.

· Projects require a 1:1 match, up to $5,000 ($10,000 total project).

“Main Street Gettysburg is excited to bring back this generous program to support local businesses in our historic district,” Main Street President Jill Sellers said in a release. “… Local interest and support were the driving forces behind the award.”

The formal application process, which will begin in January, is the next step.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer

Kiddie Academy to open at Susquehanna Union Green

Harrisburg-based developer Vartan Group Inc. revealed plans for a new educational child care center at Susquehanna Union Green at a groundbreaking Oct. 31.

Scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2023, Kiddie Academy of Harrisburg is the latest piece of the master-planned development in Susquehanna Township.

The 10,000-square-foot educational child care center will also feature extensive outdoor play areas. Mowery Construction is the design-build contractor.

Kiddie Academy of Harrisburg will serve 150 children from infants to 5 years.

“We’re excited to bring Kiddie Academy’s engaging, safe and fun learning environment that focuses on a child’s all-round development and provide high-quality early childhood learning to serve the Susquehanna Township community,” co-owner Deepak Sharma said in a release. “We are dedicated to creating an environment that feels like an extension of family where we foster trust, friendship and community between our educators, caregivers, parents and children.”

H. Ralph Vartan, CEO of the Vartan Group, added: “Susquehanna Township is gaining a major community asset in this new educational child care center. It is an honor to partner with Kiddie Academy of Harrisburg and work together to bring this vision to life.”

Based in Abingdon, Maryland, Kiddie Academy domestic franchising has more than 300 academies in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The company offers full-time care, before-and after-school care and summer camp programs.

Susquehanna Union Green is a traditional neighborhood development with restaurants and shops, offices, single-family homes, apartments, senior living, public parks and green space.

The first phase opened in 2021. More shops, businesses, homes and outdoor amenities are slated to debut in 2022 and 2023.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer

DHL Supply Chain building giant warehouse facility near Lebanon

DHL Supply Chain is starting work on a nearly 3 million-square-foot warehouse project in Lebanon County’s South Annville Township.

In late August, the third-party logistics provider purchased 198 acres for its Clear Springs Logistics Park – at Route 422 and Killinger Road – for more than $20 million from Eastern Land & Resources Co., according to a deed filed at the Lebanon County Courthouse.

Expected to include three buildings totaling more than 2.8 million square feet, the project has also received money from the state’s Multimodal Transportation Fund to support improvements on Killinger Road.

“We are excited to build on DHL Supply Chain’s presence in central Pennsylvania, and are grateful for the partnership with South Annville Township and Lebanon County for the support they have provided on this project,” DHL Supply Chain said in a statement provided to Central Penn Business Journal.

“Over the next few years, we will be delivering state-of-the-art facilities that will provide new employment opportunities for the community.”

Jeanette Henning, South Annville Township’s manager, said in an email that construction has not yet started. “They are in the process of moving earth.”

DHL Supply Chain is also investing $88 million in a two-building life sciences and health care warehousing facility at the former Alcoa aluminum plant at 3100 State Drive, South Lebanon Township.

The first of the two structures is a 970,000-square-foot manufacturing, warehouse and distribution center that the company said will create at least 200 jobs.

DHL Supply Chain is part of the supply chain division of Deutsche Post DHL Group. According to a fact sheet on its website, its customer base includes more than 1,400 customers across all sectors.

Worldwide, DHL Supply Chain employs more than 159,000 people, has approximately 1,460 warehouses and offices, and operates more than 14 million square meters of storage space.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer

PAM Health to construct first rehab hospital in Pa.

Enola-based PAM Health announced plans Thursday to build a freestanding 42-bed physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital in Mechanicsburg, its first inpatient rehabilitation hospital in the state.

Overall, the Mechanicsburg facility will be the fourth PAM Health hospital in Pennsylvania, including long-term acute care specialty hospitals in the Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh and Beaver areas.

Construction of the hospital is expected to begin in early 2023, with opening projected for 2024.

“Central Pennsylvania is an ideal location for a PAM Health hospital,” Anthony Misitano, chairman, founder and CEO of PAM Health, said in a release. “We look forward to adding a hospital where our employees and their families live and work so we can provide high-quality inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation option to our friends and neighbors in the region.”

The new hospital will assist patients with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, strokes and other neurological disorders, amputations, and other orthopedic and post-surgical conditions.

Misitano said the location, near other hospitals and “in the heart of the growing health care center of the Capitol region,” will enable PAM Health to work seamlessly with those hospitals in transitioning patients who require inpatient rehabilitation.

PAM Health provides specialty health care services through more than 70 long-term acute care hospitals and physical medicine and rehabilitation hospitals, as well as wound clinics and outpatient physical therapy locations, in 17 states.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer

Dilapidated building in Spring Grove converted into apartments

A once-blighted building in Spring Grove has been reborn as 23 luxury rentals.

North East Street Apartments at 50 N. East St. also include 8,000 square feet of commercial space.

Renting from $875 to $1,350, the studio, one- and two-bedroom units feature modern amenities, new kitchens and baths, sizable bedrooms, high ceilings, large windows and washer/dryer hookups, according to a Facebook post by project developer Predix Properties.

There is a fitness room and common laundry room as well, along with off-street parking. The apartments are within walking distance of Spring Grove Community Park and Hanover Trolley Trail.

50 N. East St. was originally an addition to the Dempwolf Building, which was built in 1896 and housed the first high school in Spring Grove School District, a release said. It was a school until 1999, when the Borough of Spring Grove purchased it.

Later, Windy Hill Senior Center and Spring Grove Regional Parks & Recreational Center were located there. In 2020, the property was sold to developer Seth Predix.

“Repurposing this building creates a wonderful asset to the community and continues to bring more good people into Spring Grove borough,” Predix said in the release. “We appreciate the support and partnership with everyone involved in this redevelopment project.”

In conjunction with Predix Properties, Spring Grove Area Chamber of Commerce and the York County Economic Alliance, the borough is holding a ribbon-cutting and open house at North East Street Apartments on Feb. 25

Dauphin County Library System begins $3.5 million expansion of historic riverfront library

A rendering of Dauphin County Library System’s incomming expansion to its McCormick Riverfront Library. PHOTO PROVIDED.

The Dauphin County Library System broke ground on a $3.5 million project on Thursday that will combine two historic Harrisburg properties. 

The library system’s project will expand its McCormick Riverfront Library by connecting it with the 5,458-square-foot Front Street residence of Sara Haldeman Haly, who seeded the Dauphin County Library System in 1896. 

When finished, the combined building will boast more than a 3,400-square-foot family area incorporating STEAM learning support, a 950-squaure-foot public meeting space, added public computer resources and more, said the library system in a press release. 

“We’re excited to get started and look forward to standing here about a year from now and welcoming everyone to a dynamic educational and cultural center,” said Karen Cullings, the Dauphin County Library System’s executive director. “The demand for our services has never been higher, and this location in the heart of downtown Harrisburg is easily accessible.”   

The project is expected to be finished in 2022 and the library will remain open during that time. 

The library system is paying for the project with funds from its “Your Place to Belong” campaign. The campaign has raised $2.6 million, or 76% of its goal. 

“For more than a century, this community has generously donated its time and treasure to The Library,” said Your Place to Belong campaign co-chair Andrew Enders. “Now, The Library is returning the favor by investing in the community. We are well on the way to creating an ideal space that models the direction of libraries for the 21st century and beyond.” 

PennEast cancels $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline project 

PennEast Pipeline announced it will end development of its proposed 120-mile long pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey after it was unable to receive the permits needed for the project.

PennEast said on Monday that despite receiving a number of the permits it needed for the $1.2 billion project, including a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project failed to secure water quality certification and other wetland permits.

“Therefore, the PennEast partners, following extensive evaluation and discussion, recently determined further development of the project no longer is supported,” a spokesperson with PennEast wrote in an email to the Central Penn Business Journal on Monday. “Accordingly, PennEast has ceased all further development of the project.”

The PennEast Pipeline was to run from Dallas, Pennsylvania, to Pennington, New Jersey with about one-third of the route located in New Jersey. It was designed to transport 1.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from Pennsylvania.

PennEast has proven controversial since it was first announced in 2014, with many residents in the path of the pipeline and environmental advocates fighting the construction of the project, citing how it would have crossed 88 waterways and 42 parcels of state-owned conservation lands.

“PennEast’s cancelation of this unneeded, dangerous fracked gas pipeline is a momentous win for the communities that have fought hard for years to defend their property and the environment,” said Otis Minott, executive director and chief counsel of the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council.

Despite the positive approval from activists, the effects of the canceled project will have widespread effects on trade, ratepayers and more, said Gene Barr, CEO and president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry in Harrisburg.

“Let’s be clear: this is no victory – not for ratepayers, who are now lacking a reliable source of gas and electricity; not for the economy, which is now out several thousand well-paying construction jobs at a time when the economy continues to struggle; and not for the environment, as this obstruction results in the mid-Atlantic being more reliant on imported fuels from foreign nations that do not have our strict environmental standards,” said Barr. “It is no victory that Russian-sourced gas has been imported into Boston harbor in recent winters.”

The PennEast pipeline was initially planned for completion by 2019 but was pushed forward into 2022.

Partners on the project included New Jersey Resources, South Jersey Industries, Southern Co., Enbridge Inc., and UGI Corp.

The project passed a significant hurtle in June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Third Circuit Ruling that looked to block the project from using federal eminent domain rules to seize New Jersey state-owned land.

Following the decision, Anthony Cox, chair of the PennEast Board of Managers said that the ruling would help the project provide affordable, reliable energy to families and businesses.

“This decision is about more than just the PennEast project; it protects consumers who rely on infrastructure projects – found to be in the public benefit after thorough scientific and environmental reviews – from being denied access to much-needed energy by narrow state political interests,” said Cox. “PennEast understood that New Jersey brought this case for political purposes, but energy crises in recent years in California, Texas, and New England, have clearly demonstrated why interstate natural gas infrastructure is so vital for our way of life, public safety, and enabling clean energy goals.”

 

 

Midtown apartment building to break ground this fall

 

Integrated Development Partners (IDP) in Wormleysburg plans to break ground on a new apartment building project in Harrisburg this fall after receiving final approval by the Harrisburg City Council.

IDP plans to convert the former Salvation Army building at Green and Cumberland streets in Midtown to an apartment building it calls The Lofts in Midtown.

The 22,100 square-foot building will offer 16 one and two bedroom units, along with 35 parking spaces for residents.

The building was sold to the real estate developer by Harrisburg-based Landmark Commercial Realty. Bo Mangam of Landmark was the listing agent and Chuck Heller and Sean Fitzsimmons with Landmark represented IDP.

While the building had housed the Salvation Army offices, it is in a predominantly residential area and the exterior of brick matches the neighborhood, noted Jonathan Bowser, managing partner with IDP, adding, “IDP thought the location would be ideal for creation of market-rate apartments.”