Quote:
Originally Posted by AKZips
Not sure what's worse. Bulldozing Peach Street for their ugly buildings, or buying perfectly fine buildings and only using them to store medical equipment. My wife complains about the old Pier 1 store every time we drive by. They literally just bought that to cover up all the windows and store all their junk in there. Can't understand why Millcreek is okay with that. Just seems like they have so much money they can do whatever they want.
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They're just land-banking... pretty much like any other large institution does. In downtown, Gannon, Erie Insurance, and UPMC all do the same.
They want to control all the land around them, for their future use, while potentially adding a monthly rent revenue stream. Lecom wants to own as much of Peach St. on both sides from Bryant to Kuntz as they possibly can... they probably own 60-70% of it now (for instance, they own the land that the Toyota dealership is on).
The medical, pharmacy, and dental programs are a major cash cow for Lecom... campuses all over the place with high enrollment. They gotta sink that cash somewhere, and real estate makes total sense.
I like the idea of developing a medical campus in this area of Millcreek. This stretch of Peach Street has been pretty junky since I can remember. It was all car dealerships (new and used)... some of which had fallen into serious disrepair... re-muddled houses/buildings (Home Video Exchange, PJs Auto Sound, old gas station, etc.).
The problem is, Lecom is decidedly 1990s "suburban" in mindset. Certainly appears that their plan is to plow everything down, lay surface parking lots, and develop bit by bit... and if the day comes where it makes $ sense to densify, they eventually will. But they're complete penny-pinchers (like Scott Enterprises), so without more stringent zoning/planning codes in Millcreek, they'll keep on doing exactly what is working for them.