The Luzerne County Convention & Visitors Bureau is set to move to the long-vacant former train station in downtown Wilkes-Barre before the end of this year.
On Tuesday, county council voted 9-2 to approve a five-year agreement with Market Square Properties Development LLC to move the visitors bureau to the former Central Railroad of New Jersey Station near Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and East Market Street.
The visitors bureau, which currently rents office space at 56 Public Square, will move to the former train station by Dec. 15, according to the agreement.
The bureau will lease 2,100 square feet of space on the first floor of the station for $2,700 per month.
If extensive renovations to the station, which has sat vacant for years, are not completed by Dec. 15, the county has the option to cancel the agreement or allow the developer up to six more months to complete renovations and pay damages of $180 per day until the work is completed.
Councilmen Walter Griffith and Stephen J. Urban voted no on approving the agreement.
Griffith said he supports the renovation of the train station and would have voted for the move had the renovations already been completed. He suggested council should wait until Dec. 14 to vote whether to approve the lease agreement.
“A lot of things can happen between now and December,” Griffith said.
George Albert, managing partner in Market Square Properties Development, has said renovations to the station will be finished before Dec. 15. Albert said the project will require a “gut and redo” of the station, which was built in 1868.
County and state officials toured a potential alternate site for the visitors bureau, the White Haven Area Community Library, last week.
Ted Wampole, executive director of the visitors bureau, said the tour convinced him the library would make an excellent satellite location for a visitors center. However, the bureau’s administrative offices should be centrally located in Wilkes-Barre, he said.
Council members Tim McGinley, Chris Perry, Sheila Saidman, Matthew Vough, LeeAnn McDermott, Kendra Radle, Harry Haas, Linda McClosky Houck and Robert Schnee voted in favor of the lease agreement.
In other business, council rejected Griffith’s proposal to reduce the penalty fee on county property taxes paid between June 16 and Dec. 31 from 10% to 1%.
Griffith argued that many county residents are still struggling financially because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The proposal would cost the county about $1 million in lost tax revenue and would not be fair to property owners who paid their tax bill by the due date, McGinley said.
McGinley gave a fiery response to comments from citizen Richard Manta, who criticized council for not providing tax relief to cash-strapped county residents.
McGinley said he grew up so poor that he and his brothers did not even have bicycles. Even so, his widowed mother, his siblings and he worked hard to make ends meet and made sure the family’s taxes were paid on time, he said.
Griffith, Urban, Haas and Houck voted in favor of reducing the late payment penalty fee. The other seven council members voted no.
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