Authority Enters into Borough Revitalization Collaborative

The Lancaster County Redevelopment Authority launched a new initiative called the Borough Revitalization Collaborative.  Partnering with three other Lancaster County organizations, the team will provide technical services for targeted renewal efforts in the County’s downtown areas.  The other three members of the Collaborative are:  the Lancaster County Planning Commission, Economic Development Company of Lancaster (EDC) and the Building Industry Association of Lancaster (BIA).

The goal of the Collaborative is to assist boroughs and villages that may lack the resources or expertise necessary to move projects from planning to reality.  The Collaborative will focus primarily on projects that result in meaningful change in the economic base of the downtown.

Bringing together public, private, planning and economic development partners, the Collaborative is not a new non-profit company.  Instead, it is what the name implies:  a collaboration between four organizations, each approaching a problem in their own way with their own resources, but all pledged to coordinate their efforts.

The types of projects such a team could tackle include adaptive re-use (changing the use of a building to another use; such as changing an old factory structure into apartment buildings, as was done with The Umbrella Works in Lancaster or the clothing manufacturing plant that became Sassafras Terrace in Mount Joy), mixed use (finding different uses, such as both commercial on the street level and residential upstairs), downtown retail/restaurant/entertainment development and housing.

At this time, the Collaborative is involved in three projects in three different boroughs.  In Mount Joy, the Collaborative is working with Main Street Mount Joy, Mount Joy Borough and the residents of an entire block that suffered damage in a fire in February of this year, to re-develop the fire damaged site.

In Columbia, a fire damaged site is the focal point of another project, which will launch in July and involves the residents, the County Planning Commission, Columbia Borough and the Authority.

Meanwhile, in Mountville, the Redevelopment Authority and the County Planning Commission are lending a hand to help move forward an existing plan by the Borough of Mountville and the Mountville Borough Authority to turn the old Mountville Elementary School into a community center.  The Mountville Borough Authority has contracted with Rettew and Associated to head up this effort.

These projects are merely the beginning of what the Collaborative hopes will be a three-year effort to achieve significant change in targeted districts, while encouraging the participation of private investment and the participation of additional community partners.  Ultimately, the Collaborative aims to provide municipalities with a partner in revitalization plans and projects, with projects being completed in the shortest time possible, as the project advances more efficiently from planning to pre-development and from development to actuality.