By CHRISTINA TATU
Pocono Record Writer
Posted Feb. 14, 2015 @ 7:48 pm

The Pocono Mountain Economic Development Corporation along with Stroudsburg Borough and a local developer are hoping a parking deck with 400 to 500 spaces will solve parking woes in the downtown. Earlier this week, the corporation submitted an application to the state for a $3 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant that would go toward construction of the deck. The deck would likely span three properties: 16 S. Eighth St., located across the alley at the rear of the Carlton House; 18 S. Eighth St., which is a privately owned duplex, and the municipal parking lot directly behind those two properties.

“As the county seat, Stroudsburg is a very important part of Monroe County. There are certain companies and enterprises that simply need to have a presence in the downtown….In order to make the most of the opportunities that exist, you have to have a place for people to put their cars,” said Chuck Leonard, executive director of the Pocono Mountain Economic Development Corporation.

The proposed deck is still in the very early stages. It’s not yet clear how many levels it would be, though Leonard estimates there will be at least four. It would be open to the public, and also feature some spots for long term rental.

The filing of the grant application earlier this week was the first major step in the process, Leonard said. “The Economic Development Corporation is a facilitator,” Leonard said, explaining the organization helped draft preliminary plans and consulted with an engineer about the potential size and location of the deck.

Stroudsburg Borough and local developer Dein Properties, which plans to put a five-story building with retail and apartment units at the site of the former Carlton House, are also involved. Dein Properties recently purchased 16 S. Eighth Street, part of the parcel where the deck is proposed to be built. “It’s not a possibility unless we can get a lot of assistance in regard to grant money,” Leonard said. He estimates the total project will cost around $6 million.

An economic need

George Strunk, Manager of Dein Properties, says the deck is needed if business is going to flourish downtown. “Fires in several large buildings on Main Street over the past decade have forced complete demolitions in some cases, and comprehensive redevelopment in other cases. Such redevelopment has been slow to attract the necessary investment in large part due to a lack of parking,” Strunk said in the cover letter he wrote for the grant application.

The Carlton House is one of the main properties on Main Street which had been sitting vacant since a 2009 fire. Dein Properties purchased the Carlton House for $195,000 at auction in May 2012 and plans to build a five-story building featuring more than 5,000-square-feet of retail space on the first floor, office space on the second and third floors and two-bedroom apartments on the fourth and fifth floors. The Carlton House was demolished in the fall to make way for that project. When asked if the Carlton House building project will be affected by the parking garage, Strunk said it won’t be, “as long as we know parking is coming.”

“If the parking is not coming, we are going to make our own way. We’ll buy other real estate and pave it over, but that’s not a good idea. It means there’s less taxable properties in the borough,” Strunk said. Strunk approached the borough about six months ago with the idea for a parking deck. Originally, he said Dein Properties planned to use 16 S. Eighth St. as a parking lot solely for the Carlton House project. “However, Dein, with a vision toward solving the parking problem for the whole town and not just itself, approached Stroudsburg Borough officials with the idea of combining the municipal lot with the small office building lot (16 S. Eighth St.) and constructing a major parking deck with 400 to 500 parking spaces,” Strunk wrote in the cover letter. “The location is perfect given that it is on the south side of town, right in the middle and just one block off Main Street.” Local officials hope to have plans for the deck approved in time to break ground later this year, Strunk said. “I think it’s awesome for downtown, and I think anyone who owns real estate will think the same. It’s going to be good for property values, for everybody,” he said. “It’s going to increase employment, increase commerce, and it’s going to help the borough offset some of the ratables it will lose (to the proposed expansion of Interstate 80).”

The borough’s involvement

“It’s very preliminary,” said Stroudsburg Borough Council President Kim Diddio about the plans for a parking deck. “The Borough of Stroudsburg clearly cannot afford to build a parking deck on its own. The only other way to address it is to get partnerships to help us because building a parking deck is not a money making business,” she said. “It’s not a sure thing, but you need to start somewhere. Instead of just sitting around and doing nothing, we are trying to look at and solve the problem.”

The Borough Council has set up a committee which includes Diddio, Mayor Dave Deihl and borough manager Cathie Thomas to meet with the Economic Development Corporation to see how the two can work together. The borough’s tax base is shrinking, so borough officials need to be cognizant of how they can “move things forward” with some of the most recently proposed building projects in the downtown, Diddio said.

In addition to Dein’s Carlton House project, developer Shanti House LLC is proposing a six-story building with up to 60 apartment units that would span three vacant lots between Sixth and Seventh streets where Atomic Mary Digital, DaVinci Café and Main Street Jukebox used to be until they were destroyed by a 2006 fire.

The county also recently acquired 701 Main Street, the five-story brick building at the corner of Seventh and Main streets, which will be used as expanded office space for the courthouse and county government.

Whatever plan is ultimately settled upon for the parking deck will still require approval from the borough council. “There’s a plethora of details that still need to be worked out,” Diddio said.

18 S. Eighth Street

The location of the proposed parking garage is “perfect” because almost all of the real estate required is controlled by those interested in the project, says the cover letter crafted by Strunk. “Just one more piece of real estate would need to be acquired, an old apartment house property that makes the corner between the municipal lot and the small office building lot (16 S. Eighth St.),” says the letter.

The property in question is 18 S. Eighth Street, a pink Queen Anne-style home turned duplex owned by local property manager Norman Fayne. Fayne had not yet heard of the project when he was contacted by the Pocono Record. He purchased the 110-year-old house about three years ago. It had previously been owned by an East Stroudsburg University art professor. Fayne has since renovated the home to include two apartments, which he rents to ESU students. The home is located in the borough’s historic district, just as the proposed parking deck would be.

According to borough zoning, projects proposed for the district must first be reviewed by the borough’s Historic Architectural Review Board (HARB), which then makes a recommendation to the Borough Council. The council must ultimately sign off on any projects. Fayne said all of his renovations to the building went through the HARB, and were in keeping with the borough’s zoning, which aims to keep the historic look of buildings located in the district.

Fayne was approached by Dein Properties about six months ago asking if he would be interested in selling, but hasn’t heard anything since. “I don’t necessarily object to it,” he said, when asked if he’d consider selling the property. However, Fayne said he purchased the home as an investment, and said selling it would come down to more than the property’s face value. He said he would also need to consider the amount of income the building brings in each year from renters. Fayne worries the parking deck, along with the other recently proposed building projects, will change the look of the downtown. “This is no longer going to be a small town,” he said.