Tag Archives: Chris Bryce

Developer unveils plans for 2 Midtown apartment buildings, additional construction planned

October 21, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

A rendering of the apartment building that Seven Bridges Development plans to build at N. 4th and Calder streets.

A Harrisburg-based developer today unveiled a plan to build two small apartment buildings in a suddenly hot development area in the city.

Seven Bridges Property Development held a public event at the site of one of the proposed development parcels at Calder and N. 4^th streets, where it wants to construct a nine-unit building.

The company also has plans to construct a 12-unit building a block away at Calder and Marion streets, said Ian Wewer, director of development and operations for Seven Bridges. Both buildings would contain one-bedroom apartments ranging from 700 to 900 square feet.

Wewer said that Seven Bridges plans to begin the land development approval process in November, with an appearance before the city Planning Commission. The project’s land development plan also must be OK’d by City Council.

Seven Bridges hopes to break ground in the spring and anticipates a three-to-five month construction timeframe for the 4^th Street building, followed by a similar timeframe for the other building, Wewer said. He projects monthly rents in the $800 to $1,000 range, with two “workforce” units that would rent for about 80 percent of the market rate.

The grassy lot where Seven Bridges Development hopes to build at N. 4th and Calder streets.

The Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority currently owns the land, but has granted Seven Bridges “potential developer” status for 60 parcels throughout the MarketPlace neighborhood, a 14-block area just north of the Broad Street Market.

Wewer said that his company considers these two buildings to be the first of many, as they would like to build on other empty lots in the neighborhood.

Earlier this year, another developer, Midtown Development LLP, believed that it had secured the rights to build on these lots. However, the HRA later asserted that Seven Bridges continued to have potential development rights through the end of the year.

The HRA did give Midtown Development “potential developer status” for 106 parcels in Capitol Heights, a neighborhood north of Reily Street that has experienced little development in over a decade after the original builder, Baltimore-based Struever Rouse Homes, abandoned the project in 2009.

Chris Bryce, a Midtown Development principal, said that his Harrisburg-based company plans to begin building single-family town homes soon on the lots.

The Reily Street corridor has become a development hotspot now that the new federal courthouse is rising at the corner of N. 6^th and Reily streets. The 243,000-square-foot building is slated for completion in summer 2022.

At a meeting on Tuesday, the HRA approved “potential developer” status to another group that wishes to build in the immediate area.

A partnership called KevGar Holdco LLC wants to build the “Judicial Office Center at Midtown” on 40 lots, 25 of which are currently owned by the HRA, between Reily, Boyd, Fulton and N. 5^th streets. The project would consist of a five-story, 75,000-square-foot office and retail building, along with a five-story parking garage with 420 parking spaces.

At the HRA meeting on Tuesday, company principal Kevin Baird, a Philadelphia-area businessman, said that a portion of the garage likely would be reserved for courthouse users, though most would be available for other parking customers. His partner in KevGar is Gary Nalbandian, a founder of both Lemoyne-based NAI CIR realty brokerage and Mechanicsburg-based Metro Bank.

To help finance the project, KevGar has put in an application for $3.7 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant. The commonwealth is expected to announce 2020 RACP grant recipients soon.

Following the HRA meeting on Tuesday, Baird declined further comment except to say that the project is still early in the development process.

“It’s all a big ‘if’ right now,” he said. “A lot of things need to come together.”

Last year, the state awarded a $2 million RACP grant to another proposed project in the immediate area. GreenWorks Development wants to construct a 135,000-square-foot, 135-unit apartment building, along with street-level retail, at 320 Reily St., which is currently a parking lot.

The project has not yet gone through the city’s land development approval process.

The Seven Bridges event on Wednesday was well attended, including by people who live in the neighborhood.

“I want property values to go up, and I know that new construction will do that,” said resident Pat Edwards. “There needs to be a happy medium for making the city better.”

Developer proposes dozens of townhouses in Midtown Harrisburg

August 7, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

A rendering of one part of the large residential project.

A Harrisburg developer has plans to construct nearly 100 townhouses on long-empty lots that dot numerous streets just north of the Broad Street Market.

Midtown Redevelopment LLP, a team comprised of developers Chris Bryce, Erica Bryce and builder Harrisburg Commercial Interiors, hopes to build some 96 townhouses, along with off-street parking for each unit.

Plans also include one larger, mixed-used building for “workforce housing” with first-floor commercial space, along with several community parks.

“We love Harrisburg, and we want it to be even better than it already is,” Chris Bryce said. “That’s truly our motivation.”

Chris and Erica Bryce have completed numerous construction projects in Harrisburg, most recently the renovation of a Locust Street building that now houses the firm, Merit Marketing. They also are the owners of City House Bed & Breakfast.

The proposed project would require the team to purchase 189 separate lots, most currently owned by the Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority (HRA), in the Marketplace and Capitol Heights neighborhoods.

Many of the lots were originally part of a townhouse development proposed by State College-based builder, S&A Homes. S&A began the project about 15 years ago, but then stopped, leaving most of the lots empty.

Last year, the HRA bought back the empty lots from S&A and, in April 2019, named another developer, Seven Bridges Development, as its preferred developer. Seven Bridges has not broken ground and, late last year, said that it would seek additional community input before proceeding with its plans.

The Midtown Redevelopment team would now like to be named HRA’s preferred developer for the lots, an issue that may be on the HRA’s agenda for its Aug. 18 meeting.

Many of the city-owned lots are overgrown, with fences in disrepair

Bryce believes that a strength of his proposal is that it conforms with the current “residential medium neighborhood” zoning for the area. Last year, Seven Bridges asked the city to rezone the area to “commercial neighborhood,” which would allow for greater height, density and mix of uses. It later withdrew that proposal.

“Ours is a comprehensive, shovel-ready proposal,” Bryce said. “We’d be ready to move very quickly.”

He said that the first townhouses would be ready for sale within six months of the team receiving the go-ahead from the city.

The development team had renderings of its proposal available for viewing last weekend at four locations on Reily Street, N. 4th Street and Hamilton Street.

Matt Long of Harrisburg Commercial Interiors (right) speaks with a Harrisburg resident on Saturday about development plans for the Midtown neighborhood.

Bryce said that he’d like to restore the neighborhood to what it once was— residential blocks of rowhouses.

The once-thriving working- and middle-class neighborhood became depopulated and increasingly blighted with the failure of Harrisburg’s heavy industry and the collapse of the railroads. In the 1970s and ‘80s, the neighborhood also fell victim to numerous arson fires.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the city cleared much of the neighborhood, but most of the lots have now been empty for 20 years or more.

“We’re very proud of what we’re proposing,” Bryce said. “We’re eager to share our plans with the community.”

This story has been updated.

Burg Blog: Historic Credits

February 28, 2020 | by Lawrance Binda

The long-shuttered Swallow Mansion in Harrisburg is currently under restoration.

As it does each year, Historic Harrisburg Association this past week presented its “Preservation Priority” list.

This is a summary of some of the Harrisburg area’s most threatened structures, and many of the buildings on the 2020 list should come as no surprise to anyone who cares about historic preservation locally.

On it, you’ll find such notable structures as the J. Donald Cameron Mansion (up for sale), the Riverside Firehouse (slated to be sold), several abandoned churches and a few structures, victims of negligent owners, that may be lost forever if not shored up soon (among them, the pre-Civil War Balsley House downtown and the former Gerber’s Department Store—aka the “Carpets and Draperies” building—in Midtown).

The old Harrisburg Moose Lodge, now the home of StartUp Harrisburg and Union Lofts

Each year, HHA uses this list to make the public aware of the area’s historic heritage crumbling around them—and maybe even hold owners’ collective feet to the fire.

But I’d like to use this blog post to highlight something else. In its presentation, further down, following the bad news, there is this—hope.

HHA lists a section called “prior listings,” which consists mostly of buildings that have been preserved or are otherwise no longer threatened.

The fully restored North Street building, which now houses Elementary Coffee Co. and apartments

I think it’s important to highlight the buildings that have been saved and the people who have done the expensive, hard work, often against the odds and against financial logic, to preserve them. It wasn’t long ago that these buildings were endangered.

So, an enormous thanks to:

Mike and Sally Wilson, who transformed the decrepit Mary Sachs and Hull mansions into the stunning Manor on Front Bed & Breakfast
Chris and Erica Bryce, who restored the General Henry and Elizabeth Gross Mansion next door to Manor on Front
Harristown Development, which saved the old Fox Hotel/Santanna’s Restaurant, turning it into a boutique apartment building
Vice Capital/LeRon and LeSean McCoy, who are finishing up a total restoration of the Swallow Mansion on N. 6^th Street
WCI Partners, which restored the boarded up former Moose Lodge and several commercial buildings on the 900-block of N. 3^rd Street
Matt Krupp and Harrisburg Commercial Interiors for saving and rebuilding two North Street buildings that now house Elementary Coffee Co. with apartments upstairs.

The Bridge, the former Bishop McDevitt High School

And, as they say, the best is yet to come.

This year, The Bridge plans to begin to transform the old Bishop McDevitt High School into co-working space and an “eco village,” Matt Long/Harrisburg Commercial Interiors has received permission to begin work restoring the Jackson Rooming House, and andCulture is completing a restoration of the Old Waterworks on Front Street.

There’s also hope that, this year, the Harrisburg school district may finally sell the William Penn building and property and that the Zembo Shrine building will change hands and find a new use.

Lastly, a million thanks to David Morrison, Jeb Stuart, Calobe Jackson and everyone at HHA for reminding this community of its historic heritage—and how important it is to preserve it.

To learn more about Historic Harrisburg Association, visit their website.

Fit for a Mayor (or You): Renovation gives new life to Midtown Mansion.

September 30, 2011 | by Lawrance Binda

A century ago, it was built as a grand mansion before serving turns as a fraternity house, a funeral home and, saddest of all, a deteriorating eyesore.

Now, Harrisburg Mayor John Fritchley’s dream mansion–which he built to impress his wife (just before they divorced)–is on the verge of a new era, as local entrepreneurs Chris and Erica Bryce last month rescued the house from foreclosure and already are transforming it into a boutique apartment building.

“This is such a great property,” said Chris Bryce. “I’ve probably had my eye on it for 10 years.”

And Bryce means that literally, as his IT consulting business, BI Solutions, is located directly across the street from the grand, Victorian-style mansion at 911 N. 2nd St.

The house was built about 100 years ago by the three-term Democratic mayor, who lived in it just briefly. It later became a frat house for Beckley College and then, for many years, the Reese Funeral Home, according to Ken Frew’s seminal book, “Building Harrisburg.”

In 2007, the building was sold for a condo conversion, but that plan soon went south. For three years, it sat empty, unfinished, open windows exposing the interior, filled with gorgeous woodwork, to the elements.

Upon taking possession last month, Bryce immediately began the long renovation process. When done, the building will feature three enormous, 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath apartments, one on each floor.

The units are being designed so that each bedroom is located in a separate wing, connected by common living and kitchen areas, ensuring maximum privacy. Each apartment will include two parking spaces.

Bryce is serving as his own general contractor, having gained experience from the decade-long renovation of City House Bed & Breakfast on N. Front Street, which he and Erica own and operate. He expects this renovation of the building, now called the Mayor’s Manor, to take about a year.

“This is a great opportunity to put in all new systems and create wonderful, new, modern living spaces, while retaining all the historic features that people love,” he said.

Tag Archives: Chris Bryce

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