Allen Street as you know it could face some drastic changes.
Two State College borough commissions met on Thursday afternoon to talk about redeveloping the block of Allen directly south of Beaver Avenue.
The Planning Commission and Redevelopment Authority held a joint meeting, hearing a presentation from planner Meagan Tuttle on borough staff’s progress with the planned redevelopment.
“There is a lot of current interest in the use of properties on that block of Allen Street,” Tuttle said. “We feel that many of the properties in this area are underutilized and we can use them to meet some of our community goals.”
The primary space being looked at is the former Verizon Building and the neighboring First National Bank drive-thru. The borough purchased the building and has been renting it out to a Penn State incubator space for student entrepreneurship, but the property will likely be a key component of any redevelopment on the 200 block of Allen Street.
There are a number of options on the table for the building, including the Discovery Space’s proposal to move into the space and greatly expand their children’s science museum. The Discovery Space board asked the borough to donate the building to the museum, but members of the Planning Commission and Redevelopment Authority would like to see the borough break even.
“I think everybody thinks the borough should at least break even at the end of the day,” commission chair Michael Roeckel said. “This redevelopment is a business, so the Discovery Space wants to be a part of that and we have to find a way to do that and not lose money.”
Redevelopment Authority member Jawaid Haider agreed that the borough needs to make its money back, but urged his colleagues to look at the Discovery Space as “a non-profit organization that benefits kids in this town and beyond and not as a business.”
No matter what happens as part of the redevelopment, the two government boards are in agreement that the Sidney Friedman Parklet should be left alone or even expanded, but not built on top of.
“I want to strongly object to consideration of the parklet,” commission member Jon Eich said. “It is a very valuable green space. You may not agree with me but I don’t think the parklet should be considered.”
Tuttle, however, strongly agreed and said that any potential redevelopment partner should want to take advantage of the parklet and find a way to incorporate it into whatever may happen with the block.
Planning director Ed LeClear said the commission has primarily discussed improvement of the park, not re-development on top of it, putting Eich’s concerns to rest.
Tuttle said there is also potential for live-work housing within the space. The borough has spoken with artists about creating hybrid studio/apartment spaces within part of the redeveloped Verizon Building.
“It does not necessarily have to be deliberate, that the one person who has a studio space has an apartment above,” Tuttle said, “but the idea is that somebody could work in this area and live in this area as well, so we could achieve that without having the specific programming of a live-work scenario.”
The plan to move forward with the Allen Street redevelopment aims for a recommendation to be presented to council in late September, followed by a public hearing in October and action in November.
“There is general support from all the stakeholders we’ve spoken with to consider this an opportunity to expand this area as a civic center downtown,” Tuttle said.
