Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — With proposals in hand from two developers for the former Hotel Sterling site, the city has set an approximate six-week timetable to review them and possibly vote on selling the land.
The next step in the process is to assemble a committee to look over the proposals that were submitted by the Feb. 1 deadline, city Administrator Ted Wampole said.
Two companies responded to the city’s request for proposals for the land on the corner of West Market and North River streets that has been used as a parking lot since the historic structure had been condemned and demolished in 2013.
One of the developers, Hysni “Sam” Syla of Gateway Center Associates, listed the West Market Street address of the former Wyoming National Bank building he converted into apartments and the Vault Grill & Bar on the ground floor across the street from the Sterling site. The other proposal was submitted by McClure Company Inc., a real estate development and property management company from St. Petersburg, Fla.
Wampole Monday said he, along with Director of Operations Butch Frati, Capital Projects Program Manager, Joyce Zaykowski and city council Chairman Tony Brooks will likely sit on the committee. Two others from the Diamond City Partnership and the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce will join them, he said.
“We will review the proposals. We will score them,” Wampole said. The proposals remain confidential at this point.
Once the committee is done it will make a recommendation to Mayor Tony George, who then can make a recommendation to council, Wampole said.
“I’m hoping to have it on council’s agenda for the first or second meeting in March,” Wampole said.
Council has public meetings scheduled for March 8 and 22. It has the authority to approve the sale of city property.
The city took ownership from Luzerne County and previously issued an RFP that drew one response from a prospective developer who withdrew the proposal in 2015. The site is a designated Keystone Opportunity Zone that provides tax breaks through 2024.
The city spent approximately $600,000 to secure and raze the building that sat vacant and deteriorated after CityVest, a nonprofit corporation, ran out of money in its effort to prepare the former hotel for development. CityVest received and defaulted on a $6 million Community Development from the county, but the city, on account of the funds it spent on the demolition, held the position of first lien with priority for payment when the property sold.
The county transferred ownership to the city and among the conditions was that it give the county any proceeds above the amount needed to settle the lien.