Karns Quality Blog

Yesterday, Sentaor Spector, Senator, Casey, and Representative Holden descended upon the Midtown HACC campus, with the press in tow, in order to hear from GSA officials on why they felt it was best to demolish the existing courthouse and build a new one at the existing site.

The Patriot has given their take, including the curveball third option thrown by Judge Conner.  He suggests that the GSA evaluate againthe site at 2nd and Paxton St. on the south end of town.  That site has been repeatedly rejected due to its position in the flood plain.  The Congressional delegation seems to like the idea, but everyone else in the room, including the GSA, was hesitant.  For more of that story, read The Patriot’s article; I have other things to mention.

First, the number crunching that the GSA performed is astounding.  They really did their best to make it look like demolishing the current building, relocating all operation to temporary quarters, and rebuilding would be cost effective.  How is this possible?  They chose to consider the $18.5 million needed for interim housing to be an investment in Harrisburg, rather than a cost.

Additionally, the GSA did not consider Reed’s recommendation of selling the existing building to private investors after completing the move.  By keeping it in the hands of the feds in their cost analysis, they were able to show that moving the courthouse would result in a loss of taxes for the city and a loss in private investment.  The GSA failed to provide numbers on how selling the courthouse would impact these factors.

Finally, they suggest that moving the courthouse would result in increased financial burdens on the city in the form of additional parking garages and infrastructure.  However, Reed claims that such infrastructure is already in the pipeline to be added.

Reed touted the broad-based community coalition as indicative that the consensus was that 6th and Reily is best.  However, Barbara Shelton of the GSA cited the Pennlive forum discussions as evidence that consensus did not exist!  When pressed further, she relented that those forums were not indicative of the whole community.

My biggest issue in all this was not addressed.  Isn’t is terribly irresponsible and wasteful to tear down a perfectly good building that can be effectively used for so many other purposes when there are alternatives available?