After 11 years, apartment complex along Delaware River in Bensalem moving forward

A Los Angeles company is teaming up with a local developer to move forward with the first phase of a major housing development along the Delaware River in Bensalem, Pa.

The Resmark Co.’s division – Resmark Land and Housing – is partnering with Mignatti Cos. to build 176 houses for Waterside, a 45-acre planned community along the Delaware waterfront. Resmark Land helps to finance, buy and develop real estate and has done so mostly out west.

Waterside has been long in the making and was a cover story in the Philadelphia Business Journal in April 2013. Read that story here.

The site had been owned by Mignatti since 2003 when the company assembled 45 acres along the Delaware River used by manufacturing and chemical plants years ago. The township passed a special ordinance covering 600 acres along Street Road and fronting the river. It was seen as a move to help ignite redevelopment of the industrial area. When Mignatti was ready to begin construction, the market had shifted and it decided to wait until housing recovered.

Steve McKenna, president and CEO of Mignatti, has long envisioned a $300 million urban village built over phases that would have a mix of housing styles including twins, single-family homes and stacked townhomes. It looks like after a decade, the first phase is about to get underway.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal

Convention Center draws line in the sand against unions

Leaders at the Pennsylvania Convention Center drew a line in the sand with the Carpenters Union Local 8, which went on strike on May 1 and also last summer.

Management gave the Carpenters and other unions a deadline of May 5 at 11:59 p.m. to sign a deal that "removes arcane limitations upon exhibitors' rights," management said in an open letter to the unions.

Philly.com reported that if the unions don't sign a new deal they will "lose their 'jurisdiction' for work at the convention center," the story said quoting an anonymous source.

It's unclear if the unions met that demand as SMG spokesman Pete Peterson and union business manager Ed Coryell Sr. did not immediately answer a call for comment. The unions could counter by saying that management is just trying to rush them through negotiations on a new deal.

The two sides agreed to a collective bargaining agreement through May 10, meaning they still need to work on a long-term deal.

"Immediate action is our only opportunity to save tens of thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars in union wages and benefits inside the Center (not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit to the region, the city of Philadelphia, and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania) that will certainly be lost due to the cancellation of shows and refusal of other shows to consider Philadelphia as a destination," wrote Gregory J. Fox, chairman of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority board of directors, John J. McNichol PCCA president and CEO, and Bob McClintock SMG chief operating officer and senior vice president in the open letter.

We'll be watching this one closely.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal