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First Posted: 9/24/2014 So who gets control of the land where the Hotel Sterling once stood is between Luzerne County and Wilkes-Barre City
The obvious question: What&#8217;s the third choice?
Actually, Luzerne County Council made a strong case at last Tuesday&#8217;s meeting for keeping the property out of its hands. The 11 members proved just how dysfunctional they have become when it was time to vote on an offer by the current owner, CityVest, to give the county the three deeds in lieu of repayment of a $6 million county loan.
Despite urging from their solicitor to make a decision or risk having one foisted upon them through the courts, council members tabled the vote until October. The reason: They want a new appraisal of the land.
This seems like an unnecessary delay. CityVest made its offer Aug.20. The appraisal could have been requested any time since then, including during council&#8217;s Sept. 16 work session. Or maybe someone could have called Wilkes-Barre to see if the city has an updated appraisal already in hand. Or council could have just gone with the county&#8217;s own assessed value of the property, $2.6 million.
In fact, that assessed value makes a new appraisal pretty irrelevant when you do the math. Barring a miracle, the property is not worth anything close to the money owed the county and Wilkes-Barre.
Non-profit CityVest was supposed to use the $6 million loan to save the Sterling and find a private developer. It failed spectacularly. Last year Wilkes-Barre condemned the building, rerouted traffic as a precaution against crumbling masonry, and razed it, then claimed a $570,000 lien on the property to cover the costs.
CityVest is broke with no ability to raise cash other than selling the property, which is why it offered the deeds to the county. Whether the county takes ownership and sells the property, or the county negotiates to have Wilkes-Barre take ownership and sell it with a percentage going to the county, most of that $6 million is sadly but almost surely lost.
All of which makes county council&#8217;s request for an appraisal look suspiciously like an excuse for inaction, a facade of careful deliberation masking an inability to act.
Reason enough to put the property in Wilkes-Barre&#8217;s hands, a move further bolstered when you look at the record each entity has in developing real estate.
For all its flaws, Wilkes-Barre at least has a few downtown accomplishments under its belt: A movie theatre, an intermodal hub, a renovated block of buildings on South Main Street. Cooperation with King&#8217;s College and Wilkes University has also led to re-purposing of downtown buildings that bordered on disuse or had already slipped into eyesore status. Granted, the colleges don&#8217;t pay taxes, but they do attract students and staff spending money.
In contrast, Luzerne County has struggled to divest itself of properties it either couldn&#8217;t afford to maintain or never should have bought: Think Valley Crest Nursing home, Moon Lake Park, The Springbook Water Co. building in Wilkes Barre, a former bank in Hazleton, and the long-empty juvenile detention facility.
County council doesn&#8217;t need an appraisal of the Hotel Sterling site; it needs an appraisal of its own growing inability to get the big jobs done.

OUR VIEW: Council’s lack of action shows it shouldn’t pass on Sterling property