Click here to subscribe today or Login.
As executive director of the Diamond City Partnership, Larry Newman gets paid to be upbeat about Wilkes-Barre’s center.
The DCP website bills the nonprofit “as the caretaker of our community’s vision for downtown Wilkes-Barre,” and the vision has six “big goals:” safe and attractive, college neighborhood, “walk to everything,” “innovation district,” historic preservation and “regional center of arts, culture, dining and entertainment.”
When the DCP was set up in 2001, that was a pretty heavy lift. But while there’s plenty of room for more improvement, we believe that an objective observer over the last two decades would agree that the progress, while often incremental, has become obvious.
As staff writer Bill O’Boyle wrote in a story last week, during a monthly report to the Downtown Wilkes-Barre Business Association at the Circle Centre for the Arts, Newman basically pointed across the street to 116 South Main. Erected in 1914, the building housed a furniture store and coffin manufacturer, then a Sears Roebuck center before becoming “South Main Towers,” its last incarnation before morphing into a hollow husk.
Wilkes University bought it in 2016 but found little use for it beyond storage of all sorts of things, from a mock Grandfather’s Clock to an apparent one-man submarine painted with a shark face.
In November of last year, Wilkes President Greg Cant announced a deal with D&D Construction to convert the upper floors into apartments. In July of this year, Cant said the university had decided to transfer full ownership to D&D while partnering with Building Blocks Learning Center to assure a new Early Learning Academy will be set up on the ground floor. While the outside of the building continued to look in need of serious work for months after that, in recent weeks facade construction began in earnest. Half the promised loft apartments are already leased.
“A year ago, it was a windowless four-story mausoleum of a building that had been vacant for more than a decade,” Newman said. “And thanks to Wilkes University, the alley next door is now a pedestrian plaza that will provide the Downtown’s arts district with a new venue for outdoor performances and events.”
That “plaza” is indeed a refreshing update of what had become a shabby lane of undefined value. We would have liked to have seen some greenery included in the make-over, but it looks good and, as Newman said, should serve well as another venue for downtown events.
Newman rattled off a few other examples of downtown’s transition to a mixed-use center where people can live in upscale apartments and walk to almost anything they may want, from movies to plays to concerts to art displays and casual or fine dining.
The former Catholic Social Services Building has 18 new loft units. The Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber is working on rehabilitating the former Charles & Mary Music building for its offices. The Diamond City Vault Bar & Grill held a soft opening.
There’s a lot more, including the sprucing up of Public Square, complete with a permanent stage arrangement that’s been getting plenty of use this summer. And crowds for the various downtown events and concerts keep growing.
“We’re continuing to do all we can to activate Downtown and showcase all that Wilkes-Barre’s city center has to offer,” Newman said. “Downtown Wilkes-Barre offers all the ingredients — from incredible historic buildings to great public spaces to strong institutional anchors — that we need to accomplish our goal. However, all of Downtown’s stakeholders must continue to work together to realize our center city’s full potential.”
Considering the slow but steady success so far, we remain optimistic the potential will be attained.
– Times Leader