TheBurg

08.18 | theburgnews.com | 15 e HFHC building on 6th and Maclay had been empty for some 40 years before its renovation began in 2015, offering an extreme example of what can happen to a vacant building. But a neglected home can begin to deteriorate in as few as five years. And many structures in Harrisburg have been abandoned for much longer. Sometimes, the cost of redressing severe neglect is enough to make a developer consider building anew. new Vs. oLD A blighted house has two fates: demolition or renovation. Deciding which path to take is a vexing question for both public and private sector developers. Even though some bids for the HFHC project came in at $3 million, Johnson expects it will cost $1 million by the time it's finished. He estimates that building a new structure would have cost at least $3 million. As a result, he said, the nonprofit came out ahead by pursuing a gut rehab. But Gary Lenker, executive director of the Tri-County Housing Development Corp., said that building new is almost always more cost effective. at was what Tri-County HDC decided to do in the Mount Pleasant Housing project, which comprises five new, owner-occupied homes on 16th and Swatara streets in South Allison Hill. ose homes were built on vacant lots where vacant and blighted houses once stood. Razing and rebuilding is usually the best solution to replace unsalvageable homes, but there are constraints that make it difficult to apply on a larger scale. Much of the South Allison Hill neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places, Lenker said, which limits the demolition of historic homes. Developers must seek special permission to raze properties in historic districts. Tri-County got authorization to demolish one burned-out row house on Hummel Street, the site of the $20 million MulDer Square revitalization project. Other homes on the street will be gut-renovated. e first rehabbed home on Hummel Street was sold this spring for a price of $70,000, after housing agencies invested $150,000 in its renovation. Lenker thinks that the Hummel Street project leaders could stretch their dollars by demolishing houses and building new ones. But he acknowledges the non-material value in saving an old structure. "New is new, and old is old," he said. "You want to keep the same look of the old neighborhood, and, if you build new, you can't replicate it exactly." Jackie Parker, Harrisburg's director of Community and Economic Development, and Bryan Davis, executive director of the Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority, said that the city approaches demolitions on a case-by-case basis, trying only to raze structures that pose a public health risk. ey agree that the city's historic housing stock is one of its most valuable assets, even if it is resource-intensive. "ese renovations are expensive, of course, but that's why we concentrate money from grants and tax credits to offset costs," Davis said. "As an entity, you can't make your money back when you're spending a lot to fix a home, but it's important to the city to preserve the housing we have." Harrisburg has adopted other policies to mitigate the costs of expensive renovations. Brad Jones, president of Harristown Enterprises, said that the 10-year tax abatement program that City Council passed in 2016 created an attractive incentive to rehabilitate vacant and underused properties. e private-sector development company has since converted a half-dozen vacant properties in downtown Harrisburg into market-rate apartment units. As a private developer, Harristown can execute more ambitious projects than its public-sector counterparts. It also works in the downtown business district, where vacant properties are less numerous and generally better maintained than in Allison Hill or Uptown Harrisburg. Jones said that renovations may bring high costs at the outset. But, if they're done well and offer an attractive, distinctive place to live, they pay off in the long run. "People look at our projects and say they're expensive, but, if you save a building, you've saved it for another 100 years," Jones said. "at's a couple of generations, and these are buildings that will never be built like that again." at's how Johnson regards the former bank at 6th and Maclay. Demolishing it was out of the question, since removing six vaults in the building would have cost $1 million apiece, he said. But he's still happy that a structure that long sat empty now has a second life. "You have to look at the overall picture—we saved a building," Johnson said. "It would have collapsed by this time otherwise. I'm not saying I want to do it again, but we saved this one." Mount Pleasant Housing

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