PhillyDeals: As Pa. opens cash spigot, developers line up

Pennsylvania developers, hugely profitable corporations, colleges, towns, and hospitals have applications pending for $1 billion in matching taxpayer funds from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP).

You didn't get yours in? Gov. Wolf last week agreed to take new requests from Monday to May 18.

Last year, the state collected $1.1 billion in RACP applications, and funded just $207 million.

The money, put up by taxpayers through state bonds, is supposed to support projects that create jobs.

Samples from this year's applicants:

Philadelphia: 66 projects, including:

• $31.5 million to help Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust and Macerich Co. update the Gallery at Market East.
• $8.5 million for National Real Estate Advisers of Washington and its Philly partners to put a Mom's Organic Market and update warehouse space at East Market.
• $20 million for SLS International Hotel & Residences' luxury hotel and apartments at Broad and Spruce.
• $15 million to Broad Street Holdings L.P. for 1300 Fairmount Ave., where New York developer RAL Cos. plans a supermarket, two parking levels, two high-rise apartment towers, and rowhouses.
• $10 million to expand AgustaWestland Philadelphia Corp., the Northeast Philadelphia civilian helicopter maker owned by Italy's Finmeccanica.
• $6 million to move and fix up the historic warship Olympia at its berth on the Delaware.
• $5 million for developer Bart Blatstein to build a hotel at the old Inquirer Building, where the state turned him down for a casino.
• $5 million for Blatstein and caterer Joseph Volpe's Cescaphe Event Group to redevelop Peco's former Delaware Generating Station into a party center.
• $5 million for Mount Airy USA's Germantown Avenue Redevelopment Initiative to fix up the old Sedgwick Theater and other real estate in the 6300-6700 and 7100-7200 blocks of Germantown.
• $2 million for FMC Corp. to fix up its new headquarters in its 49-story tower on Walnut Street.
• Delaware County had 20 requests, including:
• $10 million for Villanova University to relocate parking away from new building sites on Lancaster Avenue.
• $7.5 million for 69th Street Retail Mall L.P. to turn the closed Sears department store at 69th and Walnut into a shopping center.
• $7 million for Jeff Rotwitt's Sun Center Studios to develop a 125-key hotel and other attractions at the would-be film and tourism hub.
• Montgomery County had nine requests, including:
• $10.4 million for Ardmore Transit Center Garage so SEPTA can build a six-level garage with developer Carl Dranoff, Lower Merion Township, and Amtrak.
• Chester County had five requests, including:
• $5 million to demolish two Coatesville buildings and make way for a four-story apartment-and-store complex by DEPG Coatesville Associates L.P.
• $1.5 million for Urban Outfitters to help fund its $24 million store project at the former Waterloo Gardens near the Devon Horse Show.
• Bucks County had nine requests, including:
• $4.5 million for Biotechnology Incubator, Buckingham Township, to expand.

Source: Philly.com