Are Developers like Bart Blatstein still interested in Coatesville?

At a Coatesville Planning Commission meeting; Ray Iacobucci told us that Baker Properties was pushing them to have final approval for their development in 1995 before the ‘Bloc of Four” took over. Iacobucci had a 6 person team working on their development on the north hill of Coatesville. It received final approval by Coatesville City Council on December 28th of 2005. Mr. Iacobucci allegedly was told that if they did not have final approval before the “bloc” took over Baker would take a $2M loss and leave Coatesville.

Chetty was stuck. He already had $6M invested in Coatesville and was forced to stay. Don Pulver’s hotel was needed in the hotel market regardless of how close it was to Coatesville, so it could go forward.

The “Bloc of Four” and the Walker Administration is the primary reason redevelopment crashed and burned in Coatesville. I believe stopping the redevelopment was the reason the some of the “bloc of four’s” handlers put them in office. The gas fired power plant was allegedly in the planning stages in alleged meetings at the Whip Tavern before the election of the “bloc”. The real money would have been in the “Power Authority” that would sell power over Exelon’s lines. Richard Legree was alleged to say “Patsy may be dumb and crazy but she takes orders”. But that’s another story that involves the drug business in Coatesville.

It is my understanding that if a developer did have some interest in Coatesville; when they saw Patsy Ray in person all interest in developing in Coatesville allegedly vanished.

Now that we have a government that’s interested in moving the City forward instead of praying, building power plants and cutting back on police and fire protection; Bart Blatstein might be interested. The only thing is; the commercial loans have dried up and commercial lending may be nowhere near bottom yet.

The Redevelopment of Coatesville has begun.

 

In spite of the Walker Administration’s foot dragging Coatesville is getting a hotel. The earth is moving for the Marriot Hotel land and the Brandywine Riverwalk has begun.

Redeveloping Coatesville will eventually bring a gross reduction of illegal drug sales in Central and Western Chester County.

I believe that we had political resistance to the redevelopment of Coatesville from those who benefited from the drug business here. Political resistance from those on the take from the drug business is fading and the advocates of Coatesville’s redevelopment are beginning to take root.

I don’t know if Mr. Jaramillo’s projects will turn out exactly as proposed but I do think they will be successful. He is at the ground floor of the development of the last large municipality in Chester County that has not had a major redevelopment. And I think Coatesville will soon be the hot spot in development on the RT. 30 corridor.

We are still in the biggest recession since the Great Depression but Chester County and Southeast Pennsylvania did not sink very much into that recession. I think this area will also be one of the first areas in the USA to begin recovering. That recovery may have begun.

Because of its location along the RT 30 corridor between Exton and Lancaster; Coatesville is in the path of development. The transportation options of a major rail line, a business travel airport that will soon have direct international capability an option for a second North to South passenger rail line and short links to interstate highways make Coatesville unique in Chester County.

The Coatesville Police Department has already recovered from the Legree/Matthews days and the streets are safer here.

The new government taking over in January only has to implement the internationally recognized plans and vision for Coatesville set in motion by the Janssen/Krack Administration, Bart Blatstein, Carl Chetty and Don Pulver. And hire a competent City Manager to bring those plans to life.

Once the drag of the drug business stops and the pressure from legal business takes over; Coatesville will be in position to be the business and cultural center of Chester County. Mr. Jaramillo did indeed make a good investment.

Coatesville can be the major international business spot in Chester County. It can be a smaller version of the Manayunk/Conshohocken area with easy access to rail and road transit and office to aircraft 10 minute access to international business jet travel.

Daily Local News
Developer thinks Coatesville is diamond in rough
Published: Wednesday, December 9, 2009

http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2009/12/09/business/srv0000006994554.txt

Progress on the Coatesville Courtyard Marriot Hotel and Brandywine River Walk

 
 
 

Here are three views of the work now in progress at the site of the Marriott Hotel in the City of Coatesville. The truck is moving earth from the Marriot Hotel site to the site of the Brandywine River Walk in Coatesville on the former Carlson Steel Company. The trucks will be moving the earth from the Marriot Hotel site to the Brandywine Riverwalk site for about two weeks. The trucks come down and back First Avenue about every 5 minutes. I couldn't get in a good position for a photo of the Brandywine Riverwalk Site.

"Governor Rendell Breaks Ground on $36 Million Hotel, Office Tower; Says Coatesville's Revitalization Underway"

COATESVILLE, Pa., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Coatesville's ongoing revitalization will be strengthened by the construction of a new hotel and office tower, Governor Edward G. Rendell said today while helping to break ground for the $36 million project.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/governor-rendell-breaks-ground-on-36-million-hotel-office-tower-says-coatesvilles-revitalization-underway-78592602.html

At Saturday’s ceremony Rendell mentioned that there was originally $4.5 Million in grants. It's now $3.5 Million. So we kind of owe you a million, Ha, Ha.
I think this was a dig at Coatesville City Manager Harry Walker for letting about $1 Million in grants expire. Harry looked a little embarrassed at the time.

As far as I could tell the only Councilperson elect invited was Jarrell Brazzle.

RDA AND COATESVILLE CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING

How the redevelopment in Coatesville and the RDA proceeds depends very much our local and world economy.

China is now the economic engine of the world and could increasingly be the center of worldwide economic production. We now have several local companies shipping goods to China. Remember that the Chester County G.O. Carlson Airport will have direct flight international capability soon. A more equitable trade climate with China could make Coatesville a very popular place to locate businesses that trade internationally. That high rise office tower proposed by Bart Blatstein might go back in the plans for the “flats” in Coatesville.

It is possible for the USA to catch up to China, Europe and developing countries. But we had decades of cutbacks in education and economic production while the rest of the world carried that torch of free enterprise that was lit here in the USA. Even 8 years of “Change” might not get us back on track. Until then the “one word” for today’s graduates is not “plastics” it’s China.
See David Brooks column in today’s New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/opinion/17brooks.html?hp

A recording of the joint RDA Coatesville City Council meeting is here:
http://www.box.net/shared/uedy95huzb

Some Patsyisms from last night’s meeting:

Miss Patsy, “We need to be realistic and not make something like a dream that somebody can’t reach. We need to take something… This whole redevelopment has been put on a high thing now we need to bring it down to where we’re human and we’re economic that we can see what we need to put in.”

Ms. Karen Jorgenson, “But part of what’s going to happen, Miss Ray, is that as properties are sold and… the principal will go down and so perhaps at the end of the five years what will be left for the city do deal with is; the properties will be sold and what ever the remaining balance is the city really has to absorb.”

Miss Patsy, “That’s a pipe dream, but I’m OK with your pipe dream. I just don’t see it happenin.”

Does Miss Patsy think; as Dick Saha once said, “it will never happen” because she doesn’t want to see Coatesville redeveloped?

The first voice is Coatesville RDA Chair Joe DiSciullo
The 2nd voice is Coatesville City Council Member Miss Patsy Ray
The 3rd voice is former RDA Member John Pawlowski
The 4th voice is the RDA's attorney Pat O'Donnell
The 5th voice is the Coatesville City Council's attorney Andrew Lehr
The 6th voice is RDA Member Jack Burkholder
The 7th voice is Coatesville City Council Member Ed Simpson
The 8th voice is Coatesville City council Member Ms. Karen Jorgenson
The 9th voice is RDA Member Harry Colon
The 10th voice is Coatesville City Council Chair Marty Eggleston
The 11th voice is City Council Member Kareem Johnson
The 12th voice is Coatesville City Council Member Kurt Schenk

HOTEL COATESVILLE

 

On First Avenue in the City of Coatesville construction has begun on the site of the 125-room Courtyard Marriott Hotel. It is on RT 82 (First Avenue) just south of the RT. 30 intersection. The construction is for infrastructure only at this time.

Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corp. began the construction because the funding for the site infrastructure was about to expire and not beginning would have set the construction back five years, effectively ending the project.

The construction for the hotel could begin years from today but it could begin sooner than anticipated. The need for a hotel in the Coatesville area may actually be greater now than it was three years ago. The prospects of obtaining financing for the hotel building may be good.

MORE OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

When the plans to revitalize Coatesville were made; jobs for Coatesville residents were not forgotten:

Bart Blatstein and all other developers building in Coatesville RDA land were compelled by Coatesville Redevelopment Authority contract to hire qualified Coatesville residents first, then Coatesville School District residents, then Chester County residents and finally from any area. But the construction industry, especially the high rise building construction using Steelworkers Union workers, can be dangerous and demanding. It demands trained and skilled workers.

You can make demands for developers to hire Coatesville residents but if there are no residents that qualify for the jobs they will be filled by outside people.

Some Coatesville community activists, religious leaders and government representatives got together with a plan to train willing Coatesville residents for those jobs in a trade that they could carry with them all through their lives.

Coatesville activists Elwood Dixon and Bill Washington, Andrew Dinniman (then Chester County Commissioner), PA Career Link, The Laborer's District Council Education and Training School and former Coatesville City Manager Paul Janssen (sorry if I forgot anyone) formed and put in place an education and training program at the Laborer's District Council Education and Training facility in Exton, PA for Coatesville residents.

That education and training program has so far enrolled more than 200 Coatesville residents and residents from the Coatesville School District. Coatesville residents signed up and took preliminary testing at several sessions in the Hutchinson Church, on Chestnut St. in Coatesville.

Even drug users were not turned away. If you passed the written test and failed the drug test you could still enter the program by enrolling in a drug rehabilitation program. Upon completion those students will be and many are ready for employment as apprentice construction workers in various union trades.

Many Coatesville residents could have pointed out one of Bart Blatstein’s buildings and said I helped build that; could have.