All aboard for WB depot’s next chapter

WILKES-BARRE — There is light at the end of the tunnel for the long-suffering former railroad station downtown, and no, it’s not an oncoming train.

Instead, developer George Albert confirmed that a critical piece of funding is now assured, and renovation of the Victorian depot to house professional offices is soon to get underway.

“We’re poised to start renovating this building before the end of August,” Albert said as a swarm of volunteers carried mattresses, garbage and mounds of other debris from the old station during a community clean-up on Saturday morning.

“We’ve secured our funding, so that’s really the push for this effort today,” Albert added. “We’re thrilled and thankful that everybody’s equally interested in restoring this building as we are, and committed to it.”

“It is a true community effort,” he said.

The funding Albert referenced is a $1 million state grant he and his group, Market Square Properties Development LLC, have asked to be reprogrammed to the station from the city-owned former First National Bank building on Public Square that Albert wanted to buy for a high-tech hub.

“It’s in process, but we have a commitment from Harrisburg, so we can move forward,” Albert said of the grant.

The group’s plan is to restore the building for office space — his own group will be based there — and potentially also to host a Luzerne County visitors’ center and Planters Peanuts historical display, which Mayor George Brown has been backing.

Clean-up crew

Before any of that can happen, however, the building needed a thorough cleaning out — for at least the fifth or sixth time since Albert purchased the property in June 2016 for $1.2 million from the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority, he noted. Keeping homeless people out of the building, especially when it rains, is an ongoing battle, Albert said.

Volunteers who make up the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Blight Committee reached out to Albert last week to organize a clean-up day.

Albert offered to pay the committee for the work, but committee coordinator Greg Griffin declined it.

“We’ve been communicating with Mr. Albert over the months, and now that restoration is starting to begin we wanted to be on the ground floor to at least help clean it,” Griffin said Saturday. “Next week he’s having the professionals come in, and they don’t need to be tripping over a bunch of litter.”

In just one second floor room, volunteers estimated that they had removed about 300 pounds of trash and debris on Saturday morning.

“We knew we needed a lot of volunteers,” Griffin said, estimating that by 10:30 a.m. 35 people had turned out, with more on the way.

One of those volunteers was retired Wilkes-Barre resident Bill Langan, one of the people who shovelled up those 300 pounds of debris from a room at the north end of the building.

“Sometimes you’ve gotta have people step up,” Langan said. “If it continues, it’s just going to get worse.”

Several members of Wilkes-Barre City Council were among those who turned out to aid the effort and admire the progress, including Chairman Bill Barrett, Vice-chairman Tony Brooks, Beth Gilbert McBride and John Marconi.

“We might have to turn this into a meeting,” Barrett joked as he and Marconi talked with a reporter outside the station.

“We think this is a great cause for the city. This is an important structure and an important historic site, right downtown,” Barrett said. “I’m thrilled that it’s getting the attention it deserves.”

Marconi agreed.

“It has been an eyesore. Let’s not deny that. However, it’s being cleaned up and I’m thrilled,” he said.

Gilbert, who said she had never been inside the building before, praised the “great grassroots effort.”

“It’s a lot more structurally sound than I thought it was going to be,” she said. “Judging from the outside I thought there was going to be a lot more damage.”

Built to last

Brooks, who separately serves as director of the Wilkes-Barré Preservation Society, also was optimistic about what he observed.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” said Brooks, who was last inside the station several years ago.

“The bones of this structure are solid. In 1868 they built things to last,” Brooks added. “Here we are over 150 years later and it’s still here.”

Initially built for the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, the station came under CNJ control when that line leased the L&S in 1871. The station served passengers until 1963, and finally closed in 1972, after which the tracks were removed. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Following its abandonment as a railroad facility, the ex-station later took on a second life as a bar and entertainment complex, but eventually fell into disuse and became increasingly dilapidated.

Albert and his associates are looking to write a new chapter in that history.

“The building is only about 4,000 square feet. It’s very small. It’s got a small footprint. However to fix this building we’re spending well over a million dollars,” he said. “That works out to about $300 per square foot, which is almost twice as much as it would cost to build a new building.”

“It would have been easy to just wipe this off the map and I would have a property that’s worth a couple hundred thousand,” Albert added.

“But we’re committed to this area,” he said. “I have three children who I would like to see stay in this area, and hopefully these types of projects give not only my family but other families an incentive to stay here, through creating jobs and encouraging restoration.”

Fast food project

The only significant loose end in Albert’s plans seems to be completion of a Dunkin’ Donuts on an adjacent parcel at the complex on Wilkes-Barre Boulevard.

Litigation previously arose between Albert’s group and onetime owner Thom Greco, who cited a non-compete covenant related to the McDonald’s operating on a nearby lot Greco owns with his company, TGRG LLP.

That covenant sought to prevent a new business opening nearby selling hamburgers, ground beef and fries. In an interview late last year, Albert said that while the litigation was still active he did not believe the issue remained critical since his group was eyeing a Dunkin’ Donuts for the site instead of a Burger King.

The delays proved to be a problem, however, and the Dunkin’ deal has fallen through due to the litigation, he said.

“Dunkin’ is still a gray area,” Albert said Saturday, adding: “We’re not giving up on that, however, and we’re trying to find some middle ground for all the parties involved.”