East King Street Parking Garage Expansion Project
Mifflin Street Site Prior to Laundry Demolition Removed blighted structure Removal mitigated continued point source contamination from Laundry site View of North Mifflin Street Looking East 150 North Mifflin Street Proposed Garage Addition Site Plan Prior to Laundry Demolition 150 North Mifflin Street, Current Location of Surface Lot
2004 LNP Article Addressing the need for parking to allow City growth One step forward for the convention center project. And hopefully, a giant leap for downtown Lancaster. On Wednesday, the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority announced it is buying the land owned by Lancaster Laundry, 144-150 E. Mifflin St., to build a new 300-space parking garage. Authority officials say building a new parking garage moves the convention center project closer to fruition. City officials say it will provide badly needed parking just 1 1/2 blocks east of the proposed convention center, and will mean a lot to other downtown revitalization projects. "This is going to help the convention center, but it also going to play a big role in rebuilding downtown," said Mayor Charlie Smithgall. When the new garage is built, sometime late next year, some 300 parkers will move from the existing King Street Garage into the new garage. That will clear spaces in the King Street Garage for future conventioneers and hotel guests. The authority bought the Lancaster Laundry site and another building on East King Street owned by ACTS Covenant Fellowship Church, 142-144 E. King St., for $1.7 million. The purchase provides about an acre of land to construct the garage, which authority officials say will be designed to expand at a later date. The authority expects to close the real estate deal by the end of the year and could begin construction of the garage by late winter. It will take about eight months to build the garage. The garage is a necessary step toward making the $124 million convention center and hotel project a reality. The center, expected to open in 2007, is considered a keystone of downtown revitalization. The authority and its private sector partners, Penn Square Partners, are working jointly to design and build a 200,000-square-foot meeting center along South Queen Street and an adjacent 294- room Marriott hotel behind the former Watt & Shand department store on downtown Lancaster's Penn Square. The existing King Street garage is next door to the planned convention center. The authority recently finalized a deal with the Lancaster Parking Authority for the management of the new garage. The Parking Authority, which owns and manages most of the parking garages in the city, will move 300 of its customers that currently lease spaces in the King Street Garage to the Convention Center Authority for future hotel customers. Smithgall promised the authority at its Wednesday meeting that he will leave "no stone unturned" to find money from state and federal grants to add a few hundred more parking spaces onto the planned garage.
He said it is necessary to build more parking spaces downtown, to keep revitalization efforts all over the city moving ahead. "Now it is my job to bring the rest of the spaces. Up to 700. This is a step you had to do, so I can do what I have to do," said the mayor. According to a 2001 parking study by Walker Parking Consultants, a national firm, completed for the Parking Authority, the city needs as many as 2,300 new parking spaces to make downtown revitalization possible. Authority officials credit the mayor with kick-starting the negotiations for the garage a few months ago after the last deal had faltered. Smithgall said a 700 space garage will bring more businesses to downtown and will allow the development of the Excelsior Hall, 125-131 E. King St. The 300 space garage will cost about $5 million to build. Smithgall needs to find another $4 to $5 million to build another 400 parking spaces. Several developers have tried to rehabilitate the historic Excelsior, but each proposal has fallen flat because of a lack of adequate parking in the neighborhood. The new parking garage will be located across the street from Excelsior Hall. A York development company recently announced plans for an Irish pub in the building. The 2001 Walker study also suggested that the Lancaster Laundry site was the perfect location for a parking garage. City officials say they are hoping the company that owns the Lancaster Laundry, Deick Enterprises Inc., will stay in the city. Chuck Maneval, director of the city's Department of Economic and Community Development, said the Keystone Opportunity Zone, located between Hazel and Seymour streets in the city's southwest, may be a good fit for the laundry. Several years ago, Maneval added, Deick Enterprises had considered moving to the KOZ. The KOZ offers a break on state taxes to businesses that locate there. The Marriott hotel is being financed privately by Penn Square Partners, which includes general partner Penn Square General Corp., a High Industries' affiliate, and limited partners Fulton Bank and Lancaster Newspapers Inc., publisher of the New Era.
2007 LNP Article Addressing the demolition of the existing structures and the use of the area as a surface lot. Council backs parking lot plan OKs demolition of Laundromat Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, PA) Publication Date: January 24, 2007 By Larry Alexander Intelligencer Journal Staff Dissension on Lancaster's Historic Architectural Review Board nearly led to more trouble for the embattled city convention center, now under construction on the site of the former Watt & Shand building. The 4-2 vote by HARB at a special meeting Jan. 15 concerned a proposed 68-space surface parking lot at the site of the former Lancaster Laundry, 152 E. King St. The proposed parking lot is a temporary measure until a planned 400-space parking garage can be built in the future in the same location. HARB was asked to allow the demolition of, in addition to the laundry building, the rear "ell" portions of the former ACTS Covenant Fellowship building, 142-144 E. King St., and the former Cooper & Jackson LLC site, 156 E. King St . The Lancaster Convention Center Authority owns the buildings, which are vacant. Two HARB members, Nancy Morris and Mimi Shapiro, voted against razing the rear of the buildings. The two appeared before council Tuesday to explain their decisions. Shapiro said just removing the laundry building would give the city parking authority 52 spaces and objected to removing 19th-century buildings to gain a "measly" 16 spaces. Shapiro said no one since the late 1960s "has proposed tearing down historic buildings for surface parking" and that the city "needs better ideas and better solutions." "Surface parking deadens the downtown," she said. "It detracts from its appearance, its character and its ambiance.“ Surface parking, she said, is "an ugly waste of space at best." Morris said it's "easy to demolish" buildings, but once it's done, they can never be reclaimed. Demolishing the buildings, she said, "flies in the face of historic preservation." Steve Funk, the HARB chairman, voted with the majority. He called the plan "a reasonable compromise" that allowed for redevelopment of the site and "a more economic use of the site by providing additional parking for that neighborhood." David Hixon, executive director of the Lancaster Convention Center Authority, said approval of the $3.2 million plan was "so critical" to the overall convention center project. Refusal, he said, would jeopardize a scheduled bond refinancing and give him and the authority board "serious pause" in considering how to proceed with the project…
HARB Review Comments Excerpt from HARB review by: Suzanne Stallings December 6, 2004 “Since parking garages are typically exposed structures to allow for adequate ventilation, the proposed elevations visible al ong East Mifflin Street have been left open. Rather than creating another series of façades, these elevations are more utilitarian and functional, along a street that is currently used as an access alley and is largely defined by surface parking lots. The use of brick-faced corner stair towers with false gables helps to anchor the structure and improves the vistas from South Duke and South Lime Streets. The four-bay center section breaks up the wide horizontal deck construction. While treatment of this elevation purposely differs from the design of the East King façade, the pedestrian entrances at the two corners on East Mifflin Street could be enhanced to provide greater visual appeal as well as improved safety and comfort for pedestrians .” Excerpt from HARB Meeting Minutes January 2, 2007 “The review also cited The City of Lancaster’s 1993 Comprehensive Plan, Which recommended against the creation of commercial parking lots along street fronts.”
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