Mayor’s Receipts For Artifact Purchases May Factor in Grand Jury Probe

April 16, 2015 | by Paul Barker

These receipts, with Mayor Stephen Reed’s handwritten notes in the margins, are among the decade’s worth of purchase records for which Reed sought a $33,000 reimbursement.

The receipts were from antique malls, book stores and outfits with names out of a Zane Grey novel—Bischoff’s Shades of the West in Scottsdale, Ariz., Arrowsmith’s in Santa Fe, N.M., and Garden of the Gods Trading Post in Manitou Springs, Colo.

They tracked purchases from the summer of 1991 through mid-2001, for items as varied as an 1896 Swedish bayonet, a Jesse James “fake rifle,” a Southwestern medicine pot and a Civil War daguerreotype.

And in 2003, more than a decade after the earliest purchases, they were collected to justify a $32,928 reimbursement to the man whose name is on virtually all of them: former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed.

The receipts, along with other records of the reimbursement, are a token of city government under Reed, a mayor who has been both hailed for his work ethic and vision and criticized for reckless spending and an autocratic governing style.

They may also feature in an ongoing probe into the city’s recent debt fiasco. A witness who testified before a state grand jury, and who asked not to be named, said they were among the files presented during testimony.

The probe is reportedly looking into risky borrowings related to a retrofit of the city incinerator in the mid-2000s. The reimbursement records, though apparently not related to those borrowings, give a brief glimpse into Reed’s spending habits and his control of theoretically independent city entities.

If they are indeed among the documents being aired before the grand jury, they suggest the probe has expanded into other areas of city government during his tenure.

Reed asked for the reimbursement in a memo dated May 20, 2003, explaining he’d bought the items for the city and its museum projects using his own money.

He addressed the memo to the Harrisburg Authority, the former all-purpose municipal authority that served as a financing vehicle throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

The memo, receipts and other reimbursement records were provided to TheBurg by Capital Region Water, the successor agency to the Harrisburg Authority, in response to a right-to-know request.

Reed had come across the receipts, he wrote, while “pulling files that have been set aside in storage, for the purpose of making room for future files.”

Though he was aware of “past personal expenditures” he’d made on behalf of the city, he said, he “was astounded to find the extent” of the purchases recorded.

Former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed, left, and former Harrisburg Authority board member Fred Clark at a Senate hearing on the incinerator financings in 2012.

The items, bought from collectors across the country, were all part of the city archives, he said. They were distributed across sites including city hall, the National Civil War Museum and “the suite of the Office of the Mayor.”

In the memo, Reed noted that federal tax rules precluded him from claiming a deduction on the items, but that it was “fiscally unfeasible to simply donate them absent deductibility,” which is why he was seeking reimbursement.

Nearly all of the purchases were physical artifacts, though the reimbursement also covered $350 in expenses from a trip to Gettysburg in the summer of 2001, including $283 for three rooms at a Holiday Inn Express and a $66 tab for a five-person dinner at General Pickett’s Buffet.

The receipts also reflect a certain degree of meticulousness, as Reed’s handwriting appears on many of them, identifying which items are to be reimbursed and which are to be excluded.

On one 1991 receipt, from a vendor called Covered Wagon in Albuquerque, N.M., Reed circled $2,180 worth of items for reimbursement, but left out an item identified only as “2 Snake Dancers,” listed at $995.

On another, he calculated the exchange rate from peso to U.S. dollar, noting the receipt was from a “trade mission to sister city, Pachuca, Mexico” in 1996.

It’s not clear whether the reimbursement would constitute an ethics violation under state law. Rob Caruso, executive director of the State Ethics Commission, said that his agency’s policies precluded him from commenting on specific cases.

But he said that, in general, the ethics act covers cases involving a conflict of interest, which he defined as a public official using his or her office for personal enrichment.

Reimbursement of goods bought on a municipality’s behalf, Caruso said, would seem not to be a case of enrichment, though there are also considerations about whether those expenses were approved in advance by the municipality.

“If the public official bought those goods on his own, without the authorization of the municipality, that puts it in a different category,” he said.

In Reed’s case, reimbursement was to be paid out of a special Harrisburg Authority fund filled with fee proceeds from various bond financings throughout the 1990s. Reed claimed sole authority to requisition payments for city projects out of the fund, pursuant to a resolution the authority board adopted in 1991.

In his memo, Reed seemed to suggest the special fund was not the typical source for the request he was making, noting that “normally” he would have submitted it for payment from the city’s general fund.

But, he wrote, the “2003 fiscal constraints on the City preclude this now.”

At least two officials signed off on the reimbursement payment, which was made by check dated May 20, 2003. The check, from an account labeled “City Special Projects Reserve Fund” at M&T Bank, bears the signatures of Leonard House, then an authority board member, and Thomas Mealy, then the authority’s executive director.

Mealy, reached by phone, declined to comment, saying he had been advised not to answer questions about his time at the authority.

Though the grand jury proceedings are secret, there have been a few hints about the duration and scope of the probe. Current Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse and Steve Goldfield, a financial expert who worked on a 2012 forensic audit of incinerator financings, previously acknowledged testifying before the grand jury in early 2014.

Last month, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, whose office is overseeing the investigation, said during a Senate hearing that she hoped it would draw to a close “in the very near future.”

More recently, the Patriot-News identified a series of potential witnesses arriving this week in Pittsburgh, where the grand jury is seated, including former Mayor Linda Thompson, Dauphin County Commissioner Jeff Haste and Robert Kroboth, a finance director under Reed. On Wednesday, the paper photographed Reed himself outside the attorney general’s office there, accompanied by midstate lawyer Allen C. Welch, Jr.

Welch, reached Thursday, confirmed he is representing Reed but said neither he nor his client could comment on the reimbursement records. He could not even confirm whether he knew of their existence, he said, citing a judicial gag order.

Harrisburg Seeks to Revoke Business Licenses for 3 Bars

April 15, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

Harrisburg is trying to shut down the Third Street Cafe, foreground, and the Taproom next door for alleged violations of their mercantile licenses.

When you enter the Taproom in Midtown Harrisburg, you immediately notice several things: the ingrained smell of stale cigarette smoke, the sound of some old jukebox rock, a few well-oiled customers at the bar.

It’s about 11 a.m. on a Monday, and one guy who says he works construction (and plans to return to work) is deep into a pitcher of beer. A couple of older men in disheveled suits, laughing and slurring their words, say they’ve been regulars for years.

It’s a mixed crowd: young, old, black, white, workingman, professional, and the patrons all seem to know each other.

This is bar culture at its most basic, the kind of place that once lined block after block of old Harrisburg—the watering hole for the neighborhood, a gritty, downscale “Cheers.”

The Taproom is also, according to the city, a magnet for crime, and because of this determination, is under threat of losing its business license at the end of the month.

Harrisburg has notified three bars—the Taproom and the Third Street Café, located next door to one another in Midtown, and the Royal Pub in Uptown—that it intends to revoke their mercantile licenses.

“We’re revoking their business licenses on grounds that they violated their agreement to operate in an acceptable manner,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “We consider a business license a privilege, not a right.”

Papenfuse said city police have documented repeated incidents of criminal activity in and around the bars, such as drug activity, though he would not state the exact claims against the bars.

Dave Larche, 68, has operated the Taproom for 23 years and, recently, has seen many changes come to the commercial core of Midtown. He believes that’s the real issue, that powerful people no longer want his bar on the block.

“I think there’s an agenda because they want to do something on this side of the street,” he said, adding that, years ago, there were five bars like his along the 1400-block of N. 3^rd Street.

Dave Larche, owner of the Taproom, inside his bar.

Indeed, Midtown is undergoing a transformation. In January, the new Susquehanna Art Museum opened across the street, and, two doors up, starting this summer, Greenworks Development plans to create a U-GRO Learning Center pre-school from a former hardware store. Nearby, the Millworks restaurant and art studio space recently opened, as did the Zeroday Brewing Co. tasting room.

The dissonance between SAM’s gleaming new facility and the two rundown bars across the street is striking. As art patrons visit the museum, visibly intoxicated people often loiter nearby, sometimes causing commotion. Just last month, a fight broke out outside Third Street Café, with a man collapsing near the front door, and, a few weeks later, a shooting occurred in the back alley.

Larche largely blames his next-door neighbor, Third Street Café, for the problems on the block, which he says include public urination, people sleeping in nearby doorways and fights.

Third Street Café’s owner, Tony Paliometros, denies responsibility, saying that he runs a clean, professional bar and that he can’t control what happens outside his place.

“If someone wants to do something, they can do it outside a school or the courthouse,” he said. “Does that mean you close the school or courthouse?”

Paliometros agrees with Larche that his bar is a victim of people who wish to change the neighborhood.

“They built the new museum, and I guess they want to clear the area,” he said.

Papenfuse, who owns Midtown Scholar Bookstore and several other buildings nearby, denies that he is purposely targeting the bars for closure. Drug activity, he said, has been linked to both bars in violation of the terms of their mercantile licenses.

According to the city’s “Business Privilege and Mercantile Tax Regulation” handbook, the city reserves the right to revoke licenses for “any behavior which would constitute a crime under federal, state or local laws, including, but not limited to, drug trafficking or drug possession; committed an act of gross negligence, or allowed any manner or form of public nuisance.”

Larche admits that cocaine was found inside the Taproom last year, within a dart box, but that he can’t control what each of his customers does, even inside his bar.

Paliometros said that he needs to meet with his attorney to decide if he’s going to appeal the revocation before the city’s three-person Mercantile Licensing and Tax Appeals Board, which meets in city hall at 2 p.m. on April 30. Larche said that he is appealing, but holds little hope of winning.

“It don’t look good,” he said. “My lawyer said we can appeal it, but I think it’s pretty well done.”

Both Paliometros and Larche wonder where their patrons will go if their bars close. Paliometros expects that some will migrate to bars Uptown, while Larche said that he just doesn’t know.

“This is a neighborhood bar—a real neighborhood bar,” he said. “There are people in this world who don’t want to go to Arooga’s.”

Community Comment: Front Street Redesign Is “Ill-Conceived”

April 15, 2015 | by Ted Fridirici

Traffic moves along Front Street in Harrisburg. Starting next month, PennDOT will begin work to reduce the three-lane road to two lanes, with a bike lane, through much of Uptown and Midtown Harrisburg.

The mayor is to be applauded for efforts to make the city more livable and pedestrian-friendly. However, the proposed bike lane on Front Street is ill-conceived, if not downright dumb.

While I’m all for bicycle commuting, and used to do so frequently myself, why would anyone ride next to traffic when there is a perfectly good (safer, less exhaust-choked) bike path immediately adjacent to Front Street in Riverfront Park? The existing bike path is never so crowded that it justifies reducing the volume of Front Street.

If the city wants to promote bicycle commuting, it should consider working cooperatively with Camp Hill to remove the curb under the railroad underpass on the Camp Hill bypass and promote that as a convenient, direct path with nice, safe, wide shoulders, into the city from Camp Hill, a major West Shore-to-Harrisburg travel corridor. Or even better, work cooperatively with Linglestown, DEP and the Army COE to widen Riverfront Park to the north to Linglestown Road, thereby creating additional recreational space and opening up a convenient bicycle commuting corridor to the north.

Here’s what will likely happen. The bike lane in Front Street will sit empty while frustrated and stressed commuters and other travelers trying to get to I-83S will aggressively veer left onto Reily or Herr or other eastbound, narrow city streets and try to fight their way south around the now even more congested Front Street, all the while endangering Midtown and downtown pedestrians by doing so.

Why try to deny that people commute to and from Harrisburg? Before reducing the available volume by 33 percent, why not try a few traffic calming devices like raised pedestrian walkways or enforcing the speed limit on Front Street? Leave Front Street alone unless and until there are relatively convenient safe southbound routes out of the city.

Ted Fridirici
Former avid bicycle commuter and proud Midtown resident since 1998

TheBurg Podcast, April 10, 2015

April 10, 2015 | by Admin

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

April 15, 2015: This week, Larry and Paul give a brief update on two historic houses that may be spared demolition. Then, they turn to the more troublesome topic, on their minds because of a recent notable arrest, of crime, the community and the police.

Special thanks to Paul Cooley, who wrote our theme. You can listen to his podcast, the PRC Show, on SoundCloud or in the iTunes Store.

TheBurg Podcast can be downloaded by clicking on the date above or by visiting the iTunes store. You can also access the podcast via its host page, here.

Agency To Seek Buyer For Historic Downtown Homes

April 10, 2015 | by Paul Barker

The houses at 110 and 112 Locust St. slated for demolition, which could date as far back as the 1820s.

A pair of historic homes downtown on Locust Street may avoid demolition after all, as the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which proposed tearing them down earlier this month in a bid for more office space, has lowered the price for someone to take them off the agency’s hands.

In a meeting at PHFA’s Front Street offices last night with preservationists and neighbors, the agency agreed to offer the attached clapboard homes for $150,000, a bit below the $175,000 figure Brian Hudson, PHFA’s executive director, had cited at a planning commission hearing last week.

At that meeting, commissioners urged the agency to meet with members of Historic Harrisburg Association and Capitol Area Neighbors, two groups whose members spoke vigorously in opposition to the demolition during a presentation on the agency’s proposal.

PHFA, which says it has outgrown the eight-story office building it has occupied at Front and Locust since 2004, sought to demolish the homes to clear the way for a new 12-story, 160-foot office tower adjoining its existing structure.

Preservationists and neighbors objected to both the design of the tower and the destruction of the two homes, which are among Harrisburg’s oldest extant residential buildings, likely dating to the early 19th century or perhaps even earlier.

The agreement to seek a buyer “by no means makes all this a done deal,” said David Morrison, HHA’s interim executive director. The neighbors and his group still have concerns about whether the proposed new tower will be compatible with other buildings in the riverfront neighborhood, a historic district, he said.

The agency, for its part, has said that the Locust Street homes sat on the market unsold for three years before they finally purchased them last May for $140,000.

Hudson also noted that PHFA, though tax-exempt as a state-affiliated agency, makes annual payments-in-lieu-of-taxes to the city each year of nearly $100,000, and would continue to do so on any new building built under the proposal.

TheBurg Podcast, April 3, 2015

April 3, 2015 | by Admin

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

April 3, 2015: This week, Larry and Paul discuss the best-laid plans of mice and men and how they fared at the planning commission. Specifically, they talk about a proposal for a 160-foot office tower on the riverfront and the demolition of two historic clapboard houses on Locust Street, an exemption for a so-called “nanobrewery” and a switch in the downtown real estate market from commercial to residential.

Special thanks to Paul Cooley, who wrote our theme. You can listen to his podcast, the PRC Show, on SoundCloud or in the iTunes Store.

TheBurg Podcast can be downloaded by clicking on the date above or by visiting the iTunes store. You can also access the podcast via its host page, here.

Kennedy-Shaffer Struck From Primary Ballot

April 3, 2015 | by Paul Barker

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, left, with former Harrisburg receiver David Unkovic at a Harrisburg Hope forum at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in 2011.

City Council candidate Alan Kennedy-Shaffer is off the primary ballot, following a ruling on a petition challenge issued late Friday by Dauphin County Judge Scott Evans.

Kennedy-Shaffer “failed to act in good faith or due diligence,” Evans found, in notarizing sections of his own nominating petitions, a violation of state law.

Kennedy-Shaffer, a licensed notary, had affixed his seal on all but one of the 12 petitions he circulated in seeking a spot on the Democratic ballot. Specifically, he notarized the signatures of the people who circulated petitions on his behalf.

Ron Clever, Kennedy-Shaffer’s attorney, had argued in court last week that his client’s action did not violate the election code, but that if it did, it was an amendable error that the judge should allow him to rectify.

Any benefit to Kennedy-Shaffer from notarizing his own paperwork was indirect, Clever argued, noting that state law only forbids notarizing transactions in which the notary is “directly or pecuniarily interested.”

Evans ruled otherwise, finding that “not only is there a pecuniary interest,” insofar as council members earn a salary from the city, but also “most certainly a direct interest” for candidates in the success of their own candidacies.

Evans also discussed testimony from Gerald Feaser, director of the county elections bureau, that Feaser had advised Kennedy-Shaffer at a candidates’ night not to notarize his own petitions, or at the very least to consult an attorney if he was going to do so.

In his opinion, Evans relied almost entirely on case law from a 2009 Commonwealth Court decision regarding a Republican candidate for common pleas judge in Montgomery County. The candidate was struck from the ballot for notarizing the signatures of his petition circulators, an error identical to Kennedy-Shaffer’s.

Clever, in court, had acknowledged the 2009 decision but said he believed it was wrong.

Kennedy-Shaffer, reached Friday, also said he felt the decision ignored Evans’ own precedent in a case last month, in which he found that a Republican candidate for Middletown borough council whose petitions were challenged over notarization issues could remain on the ballot.

In that case, though, the question appeared to have been whether or not a district magistrate was empowered to notarize petitions. Though Clever raised this case as precedent in court, Evans did not address it in his opinion Friday.

“This is a sad day for Harrisburg,” Kennedy-Shaffer said. “This kind of dirty politics holds us back,” he added, referring to his prior allegations in court that a rival candidate and campaign manager were behind the court challenge.

He said he had not yet decided whether he would appeal the decision, nor had he yet given any thought as to whether to run as a write-in.

He also said he was unsure why Evans took so long to make his ruling, though Evans, in a footnote to his opinion, said the delay was a result of having to hear 17 other petition challenges.

Living Downtown: More Residential Planned for Harrisburg

April 2, 2015 | by Paul Barker

The upper floors of these historic buildings would be converted from office to residential under a proposal by Harristown.

Strawberry Square took the first step in a new direction last night, as the city Planning Commission gave its blessing to a proposed conversion of office space to residential units at the intersection of 3rd and Market streets downtown.

The plan would create six two-bedroom and 16 one-bedroom units on two floors above a stretch of shops along 3rd Street between Strawberry and Market and along Market near the corner with 3rd.

Under the proposal, 21,000 square feet currently used as office space would be converted to residential apartments, along with 6,000 square feet of loft space.

If all goes according to plan, work on the project would begin this fall with completion slated for spring 2016, said Brad Jones, president and CEO of Harristown Enterprises, which owns Strawberry Square.

City approval for the project was required almost as a technicality, as multi-family dwelling units are permitted by right in the downtown center zone. But the code requires a hearing on renovations exceeding 10,000 square feet and involving a change of use, city planners said.

The planning commission’s Vern McKissick noted that, in fact, the conversion would likely restore the property to a prior use, as the units above downtown shops were traditionally shop owners’ residences.

“It seems you’re actually going back to the past,” McKissick said.

Jones agreed, saying that several of the existing office units had fireplaces and natural light better suited to residential use. The plan would not alter the exterior of the buildings, he said.

Harristown’s project would be the latest to convert office to residential space downtown. Over the past year, WCI Partners, Brickbox Enterprises and Vartan Group all have created multi-family dwellings from timeworn downtown office buildings. In June, WCI will debut Walnut Court, a 21-unit apartment building that long housed a law firm at the corner of Walnut and Court streets.

Jones said that Harristown’s market research showed reduced demand for office space and increasing demand for residential units downtown. He also noted that additional parking would not be needed for any new residents, as the Strawberry Square complex has ample spaces available in its garage.

The working title for the apartments is “Flats at Strawberry Square,” Jones said. He said the new units are expected to rent for $800 to $1,300 per month.

Suds & Sandwiches: “Nano-Brewery” Proposed for Downtown Harrisburg

April 1, 2015 | by Lawrance Binda

A few tables at Crave and Co., where you soon may enjoy homemade soup and home-brewed beer.

A few tables inside Crave and Co., where you may one day enjoy homemade soup and home-brewed beer.

If you walk into Crave and Co. in downtown Harrisburg, you’ll be asked right away for your food and drink order–but you also may be asked for your signature.

Recently, owner Kristin Messner-Baker has been gathering signatures in support of a “nano-brewery,” a craft brewery that will produce no more than 1,000 gallons of beer a year.

If her effort is successful, her customers will be able to enjoy artisanal beer brewed on site in her snug café to go along with her menu of organic and vegetarian soups, sandwiches and salads.

“Harrisburg is undergoing a real Renaissance,” she said. “I think this would add to the excitement downtown.”

Tonight, Messner-Baker and her future brewer, Kristen Richards, are slated to make their case before the city’s Planning Commission, as they need a variance in order to set up a beer-making operation in the building’s basement. They also need the approval of the city’s Zoning Hearing Board.

Richards, who lives in Midtown, just blocks from Crave & Co., said that it’s been her dream to commercially produce beer, ever since she first was “bitten by the brewing bug” about 20 years ago.

She’s been active in local homebrew clubs and has entered many beer competitions, even winning the first-place prize for her pumpkin nut brown ale last fall at the Brewery at Hershey’s annual competition for home brewers.

“When people go to a bar, they ask for a craft beer menu,” said Richards. “This isn’t a fad anymore.”

Richards makes her beer in an all-in-one, automated brewing system, which she said she simply would relocate to the eatery’s basement.

That, however, may not happen for a while, even if the nano-brewery is approved this month by the city planning commission and zoning board. The empty basement must be outfitted for brewing, and the operation has to receive federal and state permissions, likely pushing its debut into early next year, said Richards.

Both Messner-Baker and Richards don’t believe that the tiny brewery will impact the immediate neighborhood, already home to several high-volume restaurants along the 600-block of N. 2nd Street. To start, Richards plans to brew just once a week.

The pair see a great fit between their products.

“We make everything with whole ingredients without sacrificing quality,” said Messner-Baker. “She has the exact same intentions with beer as we have with food.”

The women also share a love for Harrisburg and hope that the addition of a high-quality, small-batch brewery will bring more people into the city.

“We want to attract people into Harrisburg,” said Richards. “We really want to help make Harrisburg a destination point.”

Crave & Co. is located at 614 N. 2^nd St., Harrisburg. www.craveandco.com

State Agency Plans To Raze Two of Harrisburg’s Oldest Homes

March 31, 2015 | by Paul Barker

The houses at 110 and 112 Locust St., which could date as far back as the 1820s, are slated for demolition.

A state-affiliated agency plans to raze two 19^th-century houses, believed to be among the oldest residential buildings in Harrisburg, as part of a bid for more office space in a historic district downtown.

The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, an affordable housing organization whose board is appointed by the governor and state legislators, submitted the demolition proposal to the city for review at planning meetings this week and next.

The agency is simultaneously seeking permission to erect a 12-story addition to its existing office building, a tan-and-gray concrete structure with a built-in garage near the corner of Front and Locust streets, along a stretch of historic mansions.

The proposed tower would exceed the 45-foot height limit in the riverfront zone where the agency’s offices are located, meaning the city would have to approve a variance before the building could be constructed.

“We’re landlocked,” said Brian Hudson, PHFA’s executive director, explaining why his agency has pursued the 12-story addition, expected to add between 43,000 and 45,000 square feet. “And we need the space.”

Hudson also noted that, although his agency is tax-exempt, it makes payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, to the city each year, and will continue to do so on the assessed value of any addition.

Bruce Weber, the city’s finance director, said that PHFA has made PILOTs of $95,237 each year since at least 2012, making it the third-largest contributor of such payments, behind PinnacleHealth and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

But the plans have prompted fierce criticism from neighbors and preservationists, who accused the agency of disregarding the historic character of the neighborhood and failing to adequately notify them of the proposals.

“We’re apoplectic,” said David Morrison, interim executive director of Historic Harrisburg Association, a nonprofit that advocates for historic preservation. “That block is an intact historic block, and it’s in a historic district. Once you start taking pieces away, the whole thing starts to crumble.”

Capitol Area Neighbors, a downtown neighborhood association, has prepared a draft position statement urging the city to reject the tower plans in their current form and calling the proposed demolition “tragic and incomprehensible.”

“Locust Street is an entry way to the city that is irreplaceable in its character and beauty,” the statement said. “Perhaps two blocks remain in this heart of the city between Front Street and 2^nd Street that retain this type of architectural character.”

“We support positive re-use,” said Jane Allis, the group’s president. “We’re not against any addition. We just don’t want the streetscape disrupted.”

The proposal is the agency’s third attempt in recent years to get city approval on an expansion plan. In 2008, it sought to gut the Hickok mansion, a historic brick building next door on Front Street, and rebuild it as a parking garage with an office tower above it. But neighbors opposed the plan and the city turned it down.

In 2013, however, the city approved modified plans to adapt the mansion as rental office units instead of garage space and limit the height of any addition.

The latest plans significantly surpass the modifications that were approved in 2013, Allis said. “We don’t know why they’d come back with this,” she said.

Hudson, however, described the updated proposal as a “workaround” that preserves the Hickok mansion while adding necessary space for an agency in “growth mode.”

Bids for work on the 2013 plans, he said, came in at $2 million more than expected, largely because of the expense of building on top of the Hickok. Under the new proposal, a taller tower partly occupying the footprint of the demolished houses will preserve the mansion, which Hudson said he understood to be the city’s main priority.

A more recent addition to the Hickok will be removed, but the original section will be remodeled as a community meeting space, Hudson said. The proposal also asks for an exemption from a requirement to provide parking spaces, which the neighborhood association in its draft statement said it supported.

PHFA, which the state legislature created in 1972, is a quasi-governmental agency. Its operations are funded out of program revenues and its employees are not on the state payroll.

Since its creation, it has provided more than 157,000 single-family mortgages, built more than 122,000 rental units for low- and moderate-income residents and saved nearly 48,000 homes from foreclosure, according to data on its website.

“We’re landlocked,” said Brian Hudson, PHFA’s executive director. The agency’s downtown headquarters, left, and the Hickok mansion next door.

The agency has occupied its Front Street offices since 2004, when developers completed construction of an eight-story, 168,000-square-foot tower on the site of a former city parking lot.

The two-and-a-half story clapboard houses, at 110 and 112 Locust St., appear to be among the oldest residential buildings in Harrisburg. They go back at least as far as 1889, appearing on a city atlas that year as the homes of John Feehrer and Eliza Shatluck, respectively.

A date on an exterior door identifies the construction year as “c. 1826,” which would make them older than the so-called Joseph Black house, a Georgian revival house on State Street that Ken Frew, in his book “Building Harrisburg,” dates to around 1830.

Even at that age, though, the Locust Street properties would still be younger than at least two extant city residences. One is the John Harris-Simon Cameron house, completed in 1766, while the other is the so-called Elder House, a limestone farmhouse on Ellerslie Street, near 25^th and Derry, that dates back to 1740.

Terry and LaDonna King, a husband-and-wife pair, took title to the Locust Street houses in 2006 and restored and modernized them, connecting their second floors and installing central air, among other upgrades.

In 2012, however, the Kings lost the homes in foreclosure, beginning the “sad legacy of neglect” the homes have suffered since, the neighbors’ statement said. PHFA bought them from Mid Penn Bank last May for $140,000.

“I’ve watched them sit there for three years,” Hudson said. “The bank was ready to unload them, and they are deteriorating.”

Anne Yellott, who lived in the Locust Street houses from the early 1980s until 2000, described them as “exquisite” structures that served as a way station for artists and intellectuals arriving on Harrisburg’s budding downtown cultural scene.

“It was a great little place to stay,” said Yellott, who over the years hosted guests as varied as an astronaut, a Holocaust survivor visiting for a stage production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and a state museum zoologist who came with an iguana, a turtle and two coonhounds in tow.

Her favorite features were a pocket garden and a fireplace where she would burn wood throughout the winter, drawing affection from the attendants in the former city lot, who “loved the smell of firewood,” she said.

Two hearings are currently scheduled for PHFA’s proposal. The first, before the planning commission, will take place Wednesday, April 1 at 6:30 p.m. The second, before the architecture review board, is scheduled for Monday, April 6 at 6 p.m. Both will be held in city hall, in Room 213 of the Public Safety Building.

This story has been updated with information from PHFA and the city about the agency’s payments in lieu of taxes, and to correct the time of Wednesday’s planning meeting to 6:30 p.m.

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like