I remember when Martin Tower, the Lehigh Valley's largest building, first opened its doors in the early '70s. My Dad was invited to Bethlehem Steel's open house, and took the family. I remember nothing about the building itself, but can still see the proud smile on Curtis Barnette's face. At that time, Barnette was one of the steelmaker's many attorneys. Barnette would go on to become Director, but the steel itself would fall on hard times, and the majestic tower sits vacant, a prominent symbol of the region's economic decline.Developer Lewis Ronca wants to change that. He and silent partner Norton Herrick plan to convert this former office building complex into 230 apartments and up to 285 townhouses. But before anything happens, the asbestos has to be removed.
As LC Comm'r Dan McCarthy noted at a meeting last week, the Bethlehem Steel "is gone, but the asbestos remains." Last week, Commissioners agreed to act as the pass through agency for an $860,000 EPA loan for asbestos removal project.
even the bi-county health bureau has more merit than this project and has been going on longer than the bchb. these fools knew when they got this property that it was crap and still they have tried every trick in the book to make the common job pay for their folly.
ReplyDeleteRonca is good at spending other peoples money. Look at his track record.
ReplyDeletethe only money that should be given to this project is to knock it down. that would be a glorious implosion, get it on youtube and watch it over and over...
ReplyDelete"the only money that should be given to this project is to knock it down."
ReplyDeleteAnd still it would require the proper asbestos removal. If it is not removed now, the building sits vacant. It sits vacant and declines. It declines and gets condemned by the city. After a while, the city takes control. Guess who's on the hook for the removal? The city, b/c by then, the developer has declared bankruptcy and is only required to settle his debts with lenders and others, not to make improvements on the building. I would rather have the LOAN guarenteed by the county with the small risk of it defaulting, knowing that the developer probably wants to satisfy the loan to actually make money and not declare bankruptcy.
So, go knock down the building. The cost to remove aspestos would still be about 860k and then the ability to recover the value of the property after knocking it down would be just about killed. Nobody would pay an extra 860k for land that has less value (without the asbestos, the building and land have tremendous value... without the building, the land has less value).
This loan probably prevents the building from becoming a less sexy version of the Americus in Allentown and the developer still has to pay back the loan.
Back in the late-70s and early to mid-80s, the school district I was in removed the asbestos from the schools ... every Summer for 10 years. And every August for 10 years they assured us that it was all gone.
ReplyDeleteJust knock the building down. It's highly flawed, ugly, and not likely to really get redesigned into anything.
Let's just use some common sense.