Convention Center Leaders Deserve our Thanks

by Anne Gardner

FBG Vice Chairman

May 8, 2004

I was talking with a young friend the other day about changes in store for downtown Lancaster.  Reminiscing about the city in the 1950’s when I grew up, I mentioned walking up King Street to the old Casual Corner (then in the 300 block) to longingly gaze at – rarely buy – the Capezio shoes they sold.  She asked me about other stores of yesteryear; I mentioned Garvin’s, Groff & Wolf, Woolworth’s and Green’s 5and10-cent stores, Hager’s, LB Herr’s, and lunches at the Brunswick Hotel and Watt & Shand’s basement and the YWCA cafeteria. 

Hard to stop….moved on to movie theaters we were and were not allowed to attend, where our bus stopped, the whole early teenage drill of fifty years ago.  But before nostalgia claimed the day, I also mentioned that even in retrospect downtown Lancaster was really, well, a dump.  No Heritage Center, Fulton Opera House, PA Academy of Music, no Educators or PA School of Art and Design, no modern Fulton Bank and Lancaster Newspapers buildings, no Steinman and Musser Parks, no Lancaster Museum of Art, no rehabbed town houses lining our shady streets. 

As we stand on the brink of a new approach to the Lancaster Square area, and hear no dearth of bemoaning the ‘60’s discarding of wonderful architecture – the old Brunswick et al. – my recollections are of a truly dreadful block of North Queen Street that the truly dreadful east side now fills (the center of which is soon to be consigned to the past) and the not-so-dreadful west side (soon to be revitalized with the Binns park and new tenants).  Those buildings were rat traps, including, I’m afraid, the Brunswick.  I expect they may well have been beyond rehab save for retention of facades, and that’s not such an easy construct within which to work. 

The point of all the above is to reflect on Penn Square and our plans for the hotel and convention center.  Time-dimmed memory of “old” Lancaster distorts recognition of accomplishments in the 1960’s.  After all, Lancaster’s crown jewels listed above came from somewhere; the physical changes around Lancaster Square, lamentable as they are in retrospect, prompted cultural and economic growth that are the foundation upon which our revitalization will flourish.  It’s time now to recognize and loudly applaud the guts and tenacity of Penn Square Partners in tackling the challenge of the Watt & Shand building (preservation of which is the sine qua non of downtown health and prosperity). 

The names – the people – behind the Partners (High Industries, Lancaster Newspapers, Fulton Financial Corp.) are a pantheon of Lancaster philanthropy and economic activity.  Dale High, Rufus Fulton, and John Buckwalter picked up the dusty flag of W&S’s (and downtown’s) future after a decade of failed attempts to find a use for the building.  And it couldn’t be just any use – the county badly needed a touchstone for our hub’s renaissance.  (These are the same men – Fulton, and Buckwalter with the Steinman family – who took similar risks in the 1960’s when they committed their companies to remain and grow in downtown Lancaster.)  The men and their organizations have taken relentless heat for putting their firms’ capital where Lancaster’s collective will is – addressing the daunting task of saving the façade of a wonderful building, incorporating a piece of priceless heritage (the Stevens-Hamilton buildings), and at the same time providing an engine for downtown revitalization. 

Legal delays have taken a tremendous toll, psychically and financially, and personal abuse has been offensive beyond belief.  My opinion is that the initial project was entered into, and on-going challenges have been endured, not because of profits to make but because these men are committed to invigorating Lancaster.  The hotel/convention center plan is not a sure thing, but it’s a shot worth taking.  Just as the (some would say failed) attempt at redevelopment in the 1960’s led to valuable downtown initiatives that flourish to this day, so has the very idea of the Penn Square Partners’ plan caused a whole new generation of initiatives to take bloom and grow.  Penn Square Partners – the institutions and the people – should be lauded and thanked for their vision.