Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

Case Studies 13 – 14 13. Matchmaking Developer with a Site: Lehigh Valley Site Selector The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) has created an online search database, or Site Selector, to inform potential developers and businesses about commercial sites available in the Lehigh Valley (www.lehighvalley.org). The Site Selector is easy for prospective developers or business owners to use because it allows a developer to search by municipality, address, property name, county, sale or lease, KOZ, square footage, and acreage. LVEDC contacts brokers, developers, and local government to keep the database’s property listings current. The Lehigh Valley cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton can add to the Site Selector information about their downtown retail, mixed-use, and store-front properties. LVEDC helps smaller towns in the Lehigh Valley to enter their commercial property information into the Site Selector. 14. Transforming town’s image: Media as Fair Trade and Solar Capitol. In 2006, the town of Media in Delaware County attracted local, national, and international attention by acting locally while thinking globally. Media became the first Fair Trade Town in the United States, joining over 300 European towns. Fair Trade is a third-party certification process for handmade items, clothing, and food products that guarantees workers around the world were paid a fair price for their labor. Products are marked with a logo demonstrating their certification. Media’s pursuit of Fair Trade status was led by Hal Taussig, the founder of a local job assistance foundation, along with the Media Business Authority. The town met a variety of requirements by the British and European Fair Trade associations: the Borough Council passed a resolution committing to serve fair-trade coffee and tea at Council meetings and functions, Media shops and restaurants sell fair-trade products (primarily coffee, tea, and chocolate), work places use Fair Trade products, local press coverage has raised awareness about the benefits of fair trade, and a Borough steering committee will oversee Media’s continued involvement with fair trade practices. State and national media covered the town’s new status, and on-line encyclopedias and discussion boards praised the Borough’s national leadership on the fair trade issue.q Media also attracted two new merchants known for their Fair Trade practices – Trader Joe’s Neighborhood Grocery Store and Ten Thousand Villages. Media also gave itself a new image as “the solar capital of Pennsylvania.” Solar panels installed on the roof of Media’s Armory building, site of a veteran’s museum and grocery store, were the first Energy Harvest Project in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The $340,000 Energy Harvest funding came from the PA Department of Environmental Protection. Media also has placed solar panels on top of the public library, the downtown elementary school, a downtown theater, and the Borough Hall; the firehouse will receive panels soon. The group of panels will produce over 33,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually, with an annual savings for the Borough of at least $4,500. Use of solar panels significantly reduces emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and sulfur oxide, thus addressing both global warming and local air pollution. Media’s solar panels offer an environmental benefit equivalent to planting ten acres of trees per year. The Borough plans to continue adding solar panels to save money and enhance its image as the solar capital of the state. r Lock Haven (Clinton County) footnotes: step one Notes: 57 Some of the suggested contents of a marketing kit are taken from the Borough of Media’s Action Plan titled “Downtown Media Strategy: A Plan for the Business Core” prepared by Urban Engineers, Inc. and The Atlantic Group (February 1999). 58 Soule, Fitzgerald and Bluestone, The Rebirth of Older Industrial Cities: Exciting Opportunities for Private Sector Investment (2004). 59 Information on how to rent a booth to market a brownfield site at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) annual Brownfields conference, go to http://www.brownfields2006.org. Case Studies: q John Roman, Media, PA is first fair trade town in U.S. Delco Times, July 10, 2006.http://www. organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1061.cfm. Susan Serbin, Media Takes Step Towards Becoming ‘Fair Trade Town’, June 20, 2006, http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16812 667&BRD=2549&PAG=461&dept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media,_Pennsylvania. 41 GOAL THREE: WELCOmE INvESTmENT step one: market community to investors http://www.lehighvalley.org http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1061.cfm http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1061.cfm http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16812667&BRD=2549&PAG=461&dept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media,_Pennsylvania http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16812667&BRD=2549&PAG=461&dept http://www.brownfields2006.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

PA Community Revitalization Desktop Guide Table of Contents How To Attract High Impact Investment to Core Communities Goal One: Choose One Asset-Rich Redevelopment Area Interviews with Pennsylvania Mayors Goal Two: Prepare Redevelopment Area for Market Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Three: Welcome Investment Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Four: Apply Strategies That Work Conclusion

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.