No Small Plans: Enormous Club XL set to debut in Harrisburg.

The exterior of Club XL in Harrisburg.

As one might expect, at Club XL, nothing is small.

Big space, big patio, big stage, big bars, huge screens.

That’s the vision of owner Phil Dobson, who plans to open the 18,500-square-foot nightclub and music venue next month in an underused, 1940s-era warehouse near S. Cameron and Hanna streets in Harrisburg.

“Everything is big, hence the XL,” Dobson said.

The club will be the latest piece of Dobson’s redevelopment puzzle for this once-industrial and later forsaken area. Across one street, he opened Savannah’s on Hanna in 2009 and, across another street, River City Blues Club and Dart Room in 2014.

Dobson has owned the Club XL space for about eight years, buying it without a firm plan, but with the thought that he wanted to control the several-block area just off I-83, gradually transforming it into a nightlife destination.

Now those plans are firm, and they are of the extra-large variety.

Walking in, a reception area leads to an enormous dance floor with one of the largest stages in Harrisburg, the ceiling outfitted with an industrial lighting system.

“I went all out with the lighting and the sound to give a true nightclub experience,” he said, adding that he’s gone as far as installing Co2 cannons. “When you’re here, it’s all sensory appeal. This brings it to a higher level.”

A bar winds around the entire back and leads to a long room on the side, which will feature a concession area for food orders, with tables. Six giant screens grace the walls, capped off by a 200-inch behemoth. Upstairs, there’s a VIP area, and, outside, a large bar and a patio built around a 200-year-old sycamore tree.

Dobson said that he was inspired by Las Vegas clubs and wanted to bring that type of flashy nightlife to Harrisburg. He plans big dance parties on Friday nights, but it won’t all be DJs.

Dobson also is booking live music for touring bands that need a venue that can hold about 1,200 people. To that end, he’s scheduled the alt-rock lineup of Puddle of Mudd, Saving Abel and Tantric for the debut concert on April 15. Local bands Smooth Like Clyde and Honeypump will play the night before for the soft opening.

Club XL also will host sports, comedy and other events that can use a large open space, stage, lights, plenty of parking and other amenities, Dobson said.

“When people come here, I want them to be wowed,” he said. “I want to give them so many options that it’ll be an experience.”

Club XL is located at 801 S. 10th St., Harrisburg. For more information, call 717-409-8975 or visit the website.

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Dauphin County Doles Out Annual Gaming Grants

The Dauphin County administration building in downtown Harrisburg

The Dauphin County commissioners shelled out some $6 million to dozens of projects yesterday in the annual disbursal of gaming grant money.

The commissioners spread the money around to municipalities throughout the county, with the largest sums, by state law, going to those nearest to the Hollywood Casino at Penn National in Grantville.

In and around Harrisburg, grants to governments included:

* City of Harrisburg: $229,724 for police equipment, the engineering bureau and for Fire Bureau dive team equipment

* Susquehanna Township: $159,900 for sanitary sewer system extension, for Progress Fire Co. vehicle replacement and for Wedgewood Hills Swim Club heat pump installation

* Lower Paxton Township: $82,825 for Devon Manor pool improvements, Koon’s pool improvements and Ranger and George park soccer upgrades

* Hummelstown: $58,471 for municipal building debt service

* Highspire: $57,200 for roadway rehabilitation

* Steelton: $43,000 for Fire Department apparatus and Skate Park debt reduction

* Swatara Township: $13,000 for Police Department K-9 and training

 

Grants to Dauphin County entities included:

* MDJ Court Administration: $200,000 for construction of MDJ buildings

* Dauphin County Industrial Development Authority: $137,000 for solar farm project debt reduction

* Dauphin County Parks & Recreation: $101,000 for Detweiler Park master plan and Fort Hunter Station planning project

* Dauphin County Redevelopment Authority: $100,000 for project on former State Hospital grounds

* Dauphin County Land Bank Authority: $100,000 for renovation of vacant homes

 

Grants to organizations included:

* Camp Curtin YMCA: $100,000 for conversion of indoor pool into recreational area

* Central Dauphin School District: $75,600 for school safety improvement project

* Jewish Home of Greater Harrisburg: $75,000 for emergency generator project

* Penn FC (Harrisburg City Islanders): $72,562 for field conversion project

* Humane Society of Harrisburg Area: $70,000 for expansion of veterinary services

* Salvation Army: $50,000 for new headquarters and services facility

* Harrisburg Rugby Food Club: $50,000 for Perseverance Field improvements

* Homeland Center: $40,000 for emergency generator project

* The Nativity School: $40,000 for furniture purchase and building renovations

* Open Stage of Harrisburg: $32,000 for facility and equipment upgrades

* Capital Region Literacy Corp.: $30,000 for books in schools and clinic program

* Habitat for Humanity: $28,000 for weatherization project

* Heinz Menaker Senior Center: $25,000 for ADA-compliant restrooms

* Midtown Action Council: $13,652 for historic marker renovation and expansion

* Beacon Clinic: $5,000 for HVAC installation and renovations

Click here for a complete list of all recipients.

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With big spends approaching, Capital Region Water, Harrisburg offer professional enrichment for diverse business owners.

Panelists addressed a crowd of almost 30 entrepreneurs at an event titled “Doing Business with CRW and the City of Harrisburg.”

After years of austerity-driven decay, Harrisburg’s infrastructure is poised to get a much-needed makeover in the coming decades.

Capital Region Water (CRW) plans to spend $315 million on sewer upgrades in the next 20 years, and Harrisburg hopes to repave miles of roads and sidewalks and improve its parks.

For those with a glass-half-empty mentality, this means that taxpayers are about to shoulder decades of deferred maintenance costs within the city. But Harrisburg and CRW see the projects as opportunities for economic development – which they want to be shared equitably among the city’s population.

To that end, 30 small-business owners in the construction trades attended a panel at the CRW headquarters last night, the first in a series of workshops aimed at helping so-called Disadvantaged Business Enterprises – those headed by minorities, women or members of the LGBT community — to become competitive bidders in public works contracts.

The event series is part of an ongoing push from city hall and CRW to bolster DBE participation in public contracts.

In the past year, CRW has developed a comprehensive diversity supplier program that set minimum participation rates for DBEs in its construction projects. Diversity program manager Tremayne Terry said the plan came about after CRW took a hard look at its contractor and supplier pool.

“We realized that our contractors did not reflect the diversity of our community,” Terry said.

He explained that qualifying as a DBE won’t entitle any firm to public contracts or necessarily give them preference. Law requires a competitive process for any public bid more than $20,000. The entity awarding the contract must choose the qualified firm offering to do the job on the lowest budget.

Some entrepreneurs say that the public bidding process favors larger firms that can prepare time-consuming bids and absorb the low profit margins that sometimes come with public projects.

Terry hopes that the events that CRW has planned with the city will make DBEs more competitive applicants for public projects. And, as more public entities start to set and enforce participation rates, DBEs, which are typically smaller businesses, may find more opportunities for work as subcontractors providing specialized services on large projects.

Over time, Terry hopes that bringing more job opportunities to small DBEs can help some grow into prime contractors – the firms that manage large-scale projects.

Panelists at the event, which included business leaders, nonprofit executives and city administrators, stressed the importance of firms obtaining a third-party DBE certification. These certifications vet firms to determine, among other factors, their ownership and access to capital.

Certified DBEs can then register their status with the city or CRW, which both compile lists of DBEs in various construction trades and professional industries. Members of these lists will receive alerts every time a city or CRW project goes to bid, and they can also be offered as referrals to prime contractors looking for diverse suppliers.

At the end of the panel, questions from the audience circled back to two themes: job training and capacity building.

Many of the entrepreneurs said that one impediment to expanding their businesses was a lack of young people who are trained in trades or eager to learn.

Hubert Wilson, owner of Wilson’s Plumbing, Heating and Renovations, suggested that the scarcity of vocational education in the area shouldn’t deter young people from entering trade professions. He said that apprenticeships with other plumbers taught him all he needed to know to gain certifications.

“The only shortcoming we have is money and time to teach,” Wilson said, referring to the difficulties some small firms face in offering apprenticeships. “You can show kids [a trade], but you need money and will.”

Terry said that CRW has a role in building a pipeline of tradespeople and hopes to partner with industry associations and local schools to make trades programs available to more Harrisburg residents.

“The need for skilled labor isn’t only on the contracting side, and CRW isn’t alone in this need,” Terry said on Thursday. “It’s industry-wide.”

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Weekend Roundup with Sara Bozich

Happy Weekend!

And Happy International Women’s Day! How are you celebrating?

This weekend, I’d love to find time for some popcorn and a movie — perhaps Friday night.

Saturday is for fine wine and cheese (maybe I’ll actually blog about it??)

Sunday: Birthday dinner with mom.

What are you doing this weekend?

(more…)

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The Right Place: Midtown eatery space revived as “Right on Reily.”

Owner Dylan Simon takes a break from readying his new restaurant, Right on Reily, for an early April opening.

If there’s such a thing as a restaurant homecoming, Dylan Simon is about to come home.

A decade ago, Simon worked for Ray and Grace Diaz at Nonna’s Deli Sioso, a much-missed Italian-style eatery across the street from Harrisburg’s Midtown Cinema.

Today, he’s back in that same kitchen, working on much of the same equipment, as he makes plans to open his own place, called Right on Reily, which is slated for a soft opening on April 2.

“I fell in love with this space when it was Nonna’s,” said the 27-year-old, pausing for a brief conversation between painting, planning and fixing. “Then I missed it every time it changed hands.”

And changed hands, it has.

After Nonna’s closed, the spot briefly became Cribari’s Ristorante then, even more briefly, Mom’s Tamales and Pupusas. But, most of the time, it’s sat empty, despite its seemingly great location a stone’s throw from the cinema, Zeroday Brewing Co. and HACC’s Midtown campus.

Simon, who you also may know as the guy who’s made your cocktail at Rubicon, said that he put a great deal of thought into what would work best in the spot.

He believes that a winning formula is a mix of freshly made sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts served in the casual dining room—in other words, a real neighborhood bistro. About one-quarter of the menu will be vegan- and vegetarian-friendly, he said, and many of the ingredients will come from local farmers market and CSAs (community-supported agriculture).

Simon plans to open for the day at 7 a.m. with bakery and breakfast items, including breakfast sandwiches on homemade rolls. Lunch will follow, and he expects to offer a fixed-price dinner on weekends, though not immediately. He said he’ll run the BYOB restaurant with his fiancée, Erin O’Dea.

“This is a dream of mine,” he said. “I remember wanting to own my restaurant since I remember wanting to do anything in my life.”

For four years, Simon was a football coach at Central Dauphin High School, and he now hopes to engage with the Harrisburg school district, bringing students in who want to learn about the restaurant business and about eating healthy.

And what about the colorful, tropical mural that graces the front of the building, an echo of the brief time last year it served as a Salvadoran eatery? Simon said that he’s been in touch with the artist and that they may be able to create a concept more suited to the new restaurant.

Above all, Simon said that he’s focused on the community and will adapt to what it needs.

“It’s going to be another solid location for Midtown Harrisburg and for the city,” he said.

Right on Reily is expected to open on April 2 at 263 Reily St., Harrisburg.

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New for the City: Harrisburg hires Blake Lynch as community policing coordinator.

Screenshot 2015-09-28 10.03.32Harrisburg has hired a new community policing coordinator who will hit the streets later this month, Mayor Eric Papenfuse confirmed this morning.

Blake Lynch, who formerly worked as director of development at the Boys and Girls Club of Harrisburg, will start his new role with the city on March 26. The city’s 2018 budget calls for a $48,000 salary for the civilian position.

Harrisburg has not employed a full-time community policing coordinator since David Botero vacated the position last year. During budget talks at the end of 2017, police officials said that filling the position would be top priority with the new year. Harrisburg Director of Communications Joyce Davis said that the city received 160 applications for the position.

As the community policing coordinator, Lynch will serve as a liaison between the bureau and the Harrisburg community. This entails representing the police department at neighborhood meetings, schools and community events, as well as advising officers on community issues.

“He has excellent communication skills, and I think he’ll be a great asset to the city,” Papenfuse said.

Lynch has worked for Harrisburg once before, having served as a programs administrator under former Mayor Linda Thompson from 2011 to 2012. He hopes that his professional network and knowledge of the city, as well as his experience working with youth, will be assets in his new role.

“This job allows me to work with various partners and people I’m friends with and have worked with before,” Lynch said. “I’m very passionate about our community and ensuring that our next generation is better than the one before it.”

Lynch said that his primary goal as community policing coordinator is to continue building trust between Harrisburg police officers and residents. Doing that, he said, will require patience and a “long term approach.”

“The first thing I want to do is listen to a lot of different people,” he said. “We have to find out what things are really affecting them in their neighborhoods.”

Lynch also said he’s brushing up on his Spanish skills. He doesn’t speak the language fluently, but knows that learning it will be “vital” to working with Harrisburg’s Spanish-speaking population.

Lynch grew up in Steelton, graduated from Susquehanna Township schools and attended Messiah College. He currently lives with his family in Middletown. He spends his spare time volunteering with the Harrisburg Rotary Club and Harrisburg Young Professionals, and he and his wife also serve as relief house parents for the Milton Hershey School.

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City readies for financial report card as Act 47 deadline nears.

City Council holds its bi-weekly work session tonight in city hall.

“The clock is ticking” on the next step in Harrisburg’s path to financial recovery.

That’s the message that a state official had for Harrisburg’s administration and City Council tonight, as both bodies were briefed on the timeline for the city’s remaining six months in the state’s Act 47 program for distressed municipalities.

Marita Kelley, Harrisburg’s Act 47 coordinator, appeared at a council work session to explain the city’s duties before Act 47 status expires on Sept. 23.

Here’s what lies ahead, according to Kelley: the mayor and the city clerk will receive a financial condition report, prepared by Kelley and the Pennsylvania Economy League, on March 22. The mayor and council then will have 15 days to review the report and 20 days to schedule a public meeting on its contents.

After that public meeting, which Kelley said would take place around April 11, she and the Pennsylvania Economy League will have 90 days to prepare a final exit plan for the city. In that plan, they’ll make a formal recommendation for what the city should do in September: extend its Act 47 status, exit the program or enter the oversight of a state-appointed receiver.

The exit plan should arrive before city officials in mid-July. After another round of commenting and a public meeting, Kelley will finalize the exit plan in time for the Sept. 23 expiration deadline.

Kelley thinks it’s highly unlikely that Harrisburg will enter receivership in September. She was hesitant to recommend an action to the city tonight, but said during budget meetings in December that Harrisburg will likely to spend another three years in the program, at least.

Kelley reiterated tonight that the city’s fiscal health has improved significantly since it entered Act 47 in 2012, but upcoming capital expenses could preclude it from making a clean exit in September.

“There are some items on the horizon that will be tough for everyone to digest, but the leadership of administration and City Council has been very good under the Strong [financial recovery] Plan,” Kelley said. “I think that bodes well for the city and its ability to manage finances.”

Act 47 helps municipalities balance their budgets by, among other things, granting them enhanced taxing authority. In Harrisburg, that’s translated into a heightened Local Services Tax, which is paid by anyone who works in the city – including more than 30,000 commuters. Harrisburg’s LST tripled from $1 per week to $3 per week in 2016, and Mayor Eric Papenfuse insists that reverting to its former level would cause financial ruin for the city.

During budget talks last year, city officials said that Harrisburg could lose as much as $13 million in revenue if it exited the program in September.

As a result, it’s unlikely that the city can afford to shed its Act 47 designation until Pennsylvania lawmakers amend the state’s antiquated Third Class City Code, which caps tax rates for cities across the commonwealth.

In November, council authorized the hiring of a lobbying firm, Harrisburg-based Maverick Strategies, to help push for legislative change in the statehouse. Papenfuse said then that Harrisburg deserves special taxing authority as the state’s capital city, since it provides services to a large commuter class and cannot collect taxes on state land.

The lobbyists Harrisburg hired could push for amendments to the Third Class City Code or could advocate for the creation of new laws specific to the capital city. Legislative action could provide an alternative to a Home Rule Charter, which would give the city more leeway in setting tax rates.

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Ready to Read: “500 Men” pours into classrooms to read, listen.

Correspondent Ron Claiborne of “Good Morning America” kicked off the annual “500 Men Reading” event today at Camp Curtin Middle School.

“I’m probably a journalist today because of a book I read when I was 6 years old,” said “Good Morning America’s” Ron Claiborne this morning at Camp Curtin Middle School.

That book, he said, was “Freddy and the Bean Home News” from the “Freddy the Pig” series.

Claiborne helped to open the weeklong “500 Men Reading Week and Career Exploration” event, which kicked off today in the Harrisburg area.

The American Literacy Corp, (ALC) has held this event for 17 years. More than 500 men will read and participate in career awareness in 20 schools in four different school districts this week: Harrisburg, West Shore, Susquehanna and Steelton-Highspire.

Local author and ALC founder Floyd Stokes said he began the event “because I love reading to kids, and I figured that others would enjoy it, too.” He also wanted “to expose kids to men who enjoy reading and value education.”

The readers themselves echoed Stokes’ sentiments and expressed a few reasons of their own.

“Law enforcement is more than lockin’ up the bad guys,” said Harrisburg police Sgt. Russell Winder.

As a child, he said, his mother and aunts read him “everything from Dr. Seuss to the Bible.”

Chatting with Winder was Calvin Hynson. Hynson said he began reading for the group in the beginning, when it was the “100 Men Reading Week.” He said he participated “because you love kids and we men need to give back.”

Both Hynson and Winder served in Operation Desert Storm, and they said that today’s event was another way for them to serve the community.

Mayor Eric Papenfuse was also on hand, continuing a decade-long commitment to the event. He planned to read Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart” to middle-schoolers.

“This is one of my favorite events,” he said.

There were some newbie readers in the group, as well. Robert Jenkins said that he was reading for the first time.

“I’m just trying to give back, trying to inspire the youth coming up,” he said. “Trying to do my part.”

“The Cat in the Hat” and other Dr. Seuss books were his favorites growing up, he said.

Like Jenkins, other men were happy to share their favorite childhood reads. For Winder, it was “Oh! The Places You’ll Go!”; for Stokes, “Animal Farm”; for Hynson “Cat in the Hat”; and, for Claiborne, “Charlotte’s Web,” which he’ll read later in the day.

Some young people joined in, too. Austin Assoko and a few of his classmates from Carson Long Military Academy volunteered to read.

“Volunteerism and community service are the things that get me up in the morning,” Assoko said.

What purpose does all this reading serve?

“It’s not just about literacy. It’s about what it can do to prepare you for life,” said Gary D. St. Hilaire, president and CEO of Capital BlueCross and honorary chair of this year’s read.

He added that “Froggy Gets Dressed” was his children’s book of choice, but that reading was as much about time spent together as the books themselves.

Jamar Johnson, co-coordinator of the week, said he began reading for the event in 2009 and that the students “were excited to have me read to them.” Johnson also said that “there were a lack of men in schools and neighborhoods” and this event demonstrated a collective effort to show that men care about today’s children and youth.

Ultimately, “500 Men Reading Week and Career Awareness” wants to encourage a new generation of readers and leaders. Claiborne said.

“A single book, like a single teacher, can change your life,” he said.

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TheBurg Podcast: Bluster Edition

On this week’s episode of TheBurg Podcast, Larry Binda and Lizzy Hardison discuss developments in the city’s never-ending parking saga, new efforts to bring more minorities and women into city contracts, and the administration’s quest to hire a financial advisor.

Stream the latest episode via Soundcloud, or subscribe to TheBurg Podcast in the Apple or Android podcast apps.

Read more about the topics discussed in this show here:

Harrisburg parking system meeting projections, but negotiations on 2018 rates still ongoing.

Harrisburg Council confirms CRW appointments, delays action on financial advisor, downtown parking

No Charge: Could free parking be coming to downtown Harrisburg?

Open for Business: As Harrisburg prepares to spend millions on capital projects, it seeks to re-engage minority and women-owned business.

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Harrisburg parking system meeting projections, but negotiations on 2018 rates still ongoing.

Harrisburg didn’t get its full share of parking revenues in 2017, but it wasn’t because the city’s municipal parking system underperformed as a whole.

Financial statements show that Harrisburg’s parking system generated $25 million in revenue in 2017, falling just $130,000 short of its budgeted projections once taxes were applied.

“The system is healthy,” said John Gass, managing director of bond administration at Trimont Real Estate Advisors, the international firm that manages Harrisburg’s parking assets through its subsidiaries Standard Parking and PK Harris Advisors, LLC.

Though the parking system met its goals for the year, individual revenue categories—such as monthly garage parkers and enforcement revenue—fell slightly short of projections, and some parties, including Harrisburg, are still waiting on funds. An interim operating budget for 2018 calls for increased operating expenses and revenues, even though rates for enforcement, metered and garage parking are being applied at 2017 levels on an interim basis.

Gass said those rates will hold steady “as discussion continues on the 2018 rates for the parking system.”

Revenue from the city’s metered and garage parking spots have fluctuated in the four years since Harrisburg privatized its municipal parking system as part of its financial recovery plan.

Under that agreement, the city erased some of its billion-dollar debt burden by leasing its metered parking and garage assets to Standard Parking, a private company, for $400 million over 40 years. The Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority and Dauphin County helped finance the transaction by acting as bond issuers, effectively assuming liability for the transaction.

Keeping with the annual terms of that transaction, 2017 revenues were split between multiple accounts in a series of so-called “waterfall payments” based on a priority hierarchy. Those accounts include debt service, operating expenses and the capital reserves, which covers repairs and maintenance. Bond holders, the city of Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority and Standard Parking (through its asset manager PK Harris and parent company Trimont) also get annual cuts of the parking system proceeds.

In addition, Harrisburg and the Harrisburg Parking Authority took in $2.64 million in 2017 compared to a total due of $3 million, according to Gass. That’s not including the $3.4 million that the city grossed from the parking tax. Gass confirmed that $825,934 of system revenues are being held back from Harrisburg and HPA until different parties agree on the payment of unpaid amounts from prior years.

Since funds were being held back, Gass said, asset managers at Trimont and Standard Parking did not take performance bonuses for 2017. Gass hopes that the parties can resolve their differences in the next few months, at which point the holdback money will be distributed and Harrisburg will get its 2017 due in full.

Both Gass and Bruce Weber, Harrisburg’s finance director, declined to comment on the details of those disputes.

Disagreements over past unpaid balances were one reason that the city’s Parking Advisory Committee did not meet in 2017. According to the terms of the 2013 parking transaction deal, the Advisory Committee must meet at least twice a year to hear public comments about rates and enforcement. Gass expects that the committee will meet again in the first half of 2018, once disputes between stakeholders are resolved.

Trimont usually announces a yearly budget, including any rate or enforcement hikes, at the annual, year-end Advisory Committee meeting. Currently, the parking system is operating under an interim budget, which Gass said increased operating expenses in accordance with the original 2013 transaction agreement.

In order to sustain a higher operating budget, SP also had to increase revenue projections for the year, even though 2017 rates are still being applied.

For instance, SP hopes to rake in $1.5 million from enforcement revenues in 2018, compared to the $1.4 million budgeted and $1.3 million actual revenue in 2017. Gass declined to say if the system would make up the discrepancy by issuing more tickets or increasing ticket rates for the year.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that ticket fines are “high enough” at the current rate of $30 per ticket. He also firmly opposes increasing metered parking rates.

“We believe doing so would actually have a negative effect on system revenue,” he said.

Papenfuse thinks that the system needs to cut operating costs and bring in more parkers through initiatives like on-street residential parking plans. He also thinks that discounted specials, such as the proposed deal to eliminate evening meter enforcement in Harrisburg’s downtown business district, could paradoxically result in more revenue.

Earlier this year, officials from Harrisburg, Dauphin County and the Harrisburg Downtown Improvement District reached an agreement to front the costs of parking from 5 to 7 p.m. in much of downtown Harrisburg from Monday to Saturday. The $270,000 annual figure that they settled on would fully cover the meter and enforcement revenues that the system generates downtown during those 12 hours each week.

Papenfuse also thinks that the proposal could drive more people to visit downtown, which could, in turn, increase demand for garage parking once the metered parking supply is depleted.

City council is expected to vote on that proposal at its March 10 legislative session.

Click to view the 4th Quarter 2017 Financial Report and the 2018 Park Harrisburg Interim Budget.

 

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