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Mary Stegmair Mansion will beDownton dinner setting

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Labor Day holiday collection schedule for Wilkes-Barre

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; It shouldn&#8217;t come as a surprise the developer of the former Hotel Sterling property requested $10 million from the state for what&#8217;s been promised to be a privately funded project.</p><p>They received $2 million, and could potentially seek up to $13 million more from a fund that was set aside for redevelopment of the downtown site several years ago. That public money has been there for the asking if you knew where to look.</p><p>So much has changed &#8212; from the investors and architects, to the planning and design &#8212; that it just made sense to tap into the funding available through the state&#8217;s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, said Steve Barrouk who&#8217;s working with Gateway Center Associates.</p><p>&#8220;If ever there was a good use for the RCAP that&#8217;s it,&#8221; Barrouk said last week over the phone.</p><p>Ground has yet to broken for the $32 million project, more than a year after city officials approved the sale of the site for private redevelopment.</p><p>Envisioned as a western gateway to the city at the intersection of North River and West Market streets, the plan includes a hotel and conference center, retail and parking space and high-end apartments with a view overlooking the Susquehanna River winding through the Wyoming Valley.</p><p>It is not clear when work could begin.</p><p>The adjacent Sterling Annex, meanwhile, attracted the attention of another developer who has proposed converting that vacant building into apartments.</p><p><strong>Additional assistance</strong></p><p>Gateway&#8217;s original approach was to do everything all at once, but that&#8217;s given way to phasing it in. The $2 million RCAP grant awarded last month will be coupled with private funds in the first phase, Barrouk said.</p><p>&#8220;It just makes the project better if we can get additional assistance,&#8221; Barrouk said of the reliance on public money.</p><p>That money is not coming from the city, Barrouk stressed, reiterating a point he made in March 2018 to Wilkes-Barre city council before it approved selling the former hotel property for $600,000 to Hysni Syla, the head of Gateway.</p><p>As an agent for the buyer, Barrouk, representing City Brokers LLC, received a 3% broker&#8217;s fee.</p><p>Multiple attempts to reach Syla, a Kosovo native who&#8217;s developed smaller projects in the city, were unsuccessful.</p><p>The former Sterling site already had Keystone Opportunity Zone designation that provides tax relief through 2024, Barrouk told council at the time.</p><p>&#8220;As a KOZ on that site, we&#8217;re not going to come in and ask for any grants from the city, you know, to build the buildings. It&#8217;s going to be privately funded. We&#8217;re not asking for a subsidy on this,&#8221; Barrouk said at the March 22, 2018 public meeting.</p><p>He&#8217;s kept his word.</p><p>&#8220;We weren&#8217;t asking the city for any direct assistance,&#8221; Barrouk said last week.</p><p>But he indicated additional state funds might be sought.</p><p>&#8220;We may go back to the RCAP again,&#8221; Barrouk said.</p><p><strong>State funding process</strong></p><p>The funding had been authorized in the state capital budget when prior efforts by nonprofit CityVest to develop the vacant hotel and surrounding property were called off. The city condemned the building and demolished it in 2013.</p><p>Each year the General Assembly is constitutionally required to adopt a separate capital budget for public highway and bridge, flood control, facility improvement and redevelopment assistance projects.</p><p>State revenues and bonds provide the funding and what projects are awarded grants are at the discretion of the governor, the House Appropriations Committee said in 2013 Frequently Asked Questions release about the capital budget.</p><p>There&#8217;s often a lag between the authorization and the allocation.</p><p>&#8220;The lead-time required before a project is finally funded and the backlog of projects previously authorized makes the funding of a recently approved project unusual,&#8221; the committee&#8217;s release said.</p><p>The state capital budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year contained a $10 million allocation for &#8220;Construction and other related costs for the redevelopment of the former Sterling Hotel property in downtown Wilkes-Barre.&#8221;</p><p>The amount increased to $15 million in the 2017-2018 capital budget, but the project description made no mention of the former Sterling Hotel.</p><p><strong>Knowing where to look</strong></p><p>Finding the funds was just a matter of knowing where to look for Barrouk, a former Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry executive who&#8217;s part of City Brokers LLC.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve always known the RCAP existed,&#8221; Barrouk said. &#8220;It may have gone in when I was working for the Chamber,&#8221; he added.</p><p>The Chamber knew where to look too when its Greater Wilkes-Barre Industrial Fund submitted an application for assistance to the state in January of this year.</p><p>The application contained the exact wording of the project in the capital budget: &#8220;Construction and infrastructure improvements of downtown convention headquarters hotel.&#8221;</p><p>Wico van Genderen, president of the Chamber, said he&#8217;s been working with the Syla and Barrouk regarding the project. The Chamber&#8217;s role is that of a &#8220;conduit&#8221; to pass through the funding from the state, van Genderen said. He was satisfied the money would be put to good use.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to make sure whatever we put on that site has a long-term benefit and iconic value to the city,&#8221; van Genderen said.</p><p>To make that happen there have been some changes with the investors and the architect, Barrouk added. They would be identified at the appropriate time, he said.</p><p>The original proposal Gateway submitted last year was reviewed by a development team assembled by the city and compared to the only competitor McClure Company Inc. of St. Petersburg, Florida. Gateway&#8217;s scored higher.</p><p>&#8220;The content of the project is probably going to be similar to what we presented,&#8221; Barrouk said.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The Sterling Annex on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. A developer has proposed converting the vacant building into apartments.  </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling3.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Sterling Annex on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. A developer has proposed converting the vacant building into apartments.  </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling5.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The former Hotel Sterling lot is seen on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Construction on a proposed $32 million private redevelopment project has yet to begin, but the developers have received a $2 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant and may seek more, a representative said. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling5.jpg</photo1><caption1>The former Hotel Sterling lot is seen on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Construction on a proposed $32 million private redevelopment project has yet to begin, but the developers have received a $2 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant and may seek more, a representative said. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The vacant Sterling Annex is reflected in a puddle in the former Sterling Hotel lot in downtown Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_TTL083119sterling1.jpg</photo2><caption2>The vacant Sterling Annex is reflected in a puddle in the former Sterling Hotel lot in downtown Wilkes-Barre. </caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Private developer taps into state funds for redevelopment of hotel site </subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

A Sterling opportunity? Private developer taps into state funds for redevelopment of Hotel Sterling site