It's a stunning contrast to the surrounding farmland - one of the biggest bursts of civilization on Route 322 in Lancaster County: Ephrata Borough.
Ephrata will have a spanking-new borough hall, expected to open soon; a hospital that has invested in a new $13 million health care building and has planned a $7 million expansion of its inpatient services; and an impressive library and recreation/fitness center on par with cities having larger populations than its 13,213.
The downtown has an imposing skyline, dominated by the sixstory Brossman Building, owned by D&E Communications Inc. Inside that landmark is Lily's on Main restaurant and a movie theater. The downtown has quaint brick sidewalks and vintage lampposts with decorative banners that change with the seasons. A sign in a parking lot in the center of town proclaims: "Ephrata - Shop Downtown Monday and Friday evenings." But, the shopping is not as abundant as it once was. Main Street has three gaping vacancies where longtime businesses used to be; all of them shut down in the last year and a half. Two of them, Sprecher's Hardware and Burkhart & Drezner clothing and dry-cleaning store, were mainstays for decades. Tri-County Appliance went out of business in March. And, on nearby State Street, Ephrata Medical Equipment and an antiques shop are also gone.
Filling the void
Ephrata is a borough divided over the direction of its downtown business. Although Ephrata Borough Council is making a concerted effort to fill the vacancies, it's not happening fast enough for several members of the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce, including one of its high-ranking officers.
Downtown Ephrata has been changing by degrees. Jim Duckworth of Tri-County Appliance says the downtown's fortune started shifting with the opening of the Wal-Mart superstore three years ago on the outskirts of town. "When Wal-Mart came, it scared a lot of people," he says.
A JC Penney store shut its doors, as did Weit's newsstand, another Main Street mainstay. Duckworth closed his business but says he was doing well. He says he just wanted to move on to other things.
David Sprecher, who owned Sprecher's Hardware, says the competition definitely ate into his 132-year-old business. "We lost to the larger chain stores, Lowe's (in Lebanon), Home Depot (in Lancaster) and Wal-Mart. We still sold the nuts and bolts, but we lost the bigger sales, the larger items, like tools, weed trimmers, small appliances and lawn mowers to them." He also says when other stores shut down, there was less traffic downtown, and that hurt his business, too.
Ephrata Medical Equipment moved to a brand-new shopping center on the western edge of town. Operations Manager Ted Gress says the business, owned by the Ephrata Community Hospital, was in dire need of more space and parking. He says downtown parking posed a big hardship for his handicapped customers, who were forced to park blocks away. Now, he says, he's situated in a "much brighter, cheerier store than before, and we're much busier because there's much more traffic at this location." He regrets having to move, calling the downtown situation unfortunate.
"We feel the sting of all that stuff (shutdowns), and we understand how people feel," says Fred Thomas, chairman of the Ephrata Borough Council's Development Activity Committee. He contends that all small downtowns are suffering. The reason: "Market evolution. Just like -we saw the demise of mom-and-pop grocery stores, daily home deliveries of bread and milk, and the friendly guy who filled your gas tank and washed your windshield, downtowns have fallen out of vogue."
He and Borough Manager Gary Nace believe revitalization is the way to bring back Ephrata's downtown.
Nace says his goal is to make the downtown an "exciting" retail hub, with a mix of specialty shops that will draw people already visiting other popular venues. They include the historic Ephrata Cloister in town, Donecker's, a successful restaurant and retail complex located about a half-mile away with a worldwide clientele and the antique and Amish attractions that draw 7 million tourists to Lancaster County every year. "We think we have a real opportunity here," he says.
Gambling on a resort
There is an attraction that could help put Ephrata back on the map again, as it did 150 years ago. All it needs is a gambler with somewhat deep pockets who is not afraid to bet on the long haul. The borough has been trying to breathe new life into the ruins of what was once the Mountain Springs Resort. The location has a lot of grandeur and mystique going for it: In its heyday in the mid-1800s, the resort, built around the area's mineral springs, was the playground of presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as highsociety types who hailed from all over the East Coast. Later on, in the 1930s, a Spiritualist group held seances there.
The Ephrata Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit group, took over the property and prospected for a developer. Many people had come forward with all kinds of plans, including a proposal for garden apartments. But EEDC Board Chairman William Hecker says the group preferred the idea of turning the property back into an upscale resort and meeting center that would attract the Donecker's and Cloister crowds who flock to the hotels along Route 30 outside the borough in Lancaster County.
Hecker says development plans were moving along nicely two years ago, and then the financiers pulled out.
Negotiations are under way with a new Lancaster County development company that plans to replace part of the structure but adhere to the original design. He declined to identify the developer.
Total restoration, he says, would be prohibitive. "You'd need the Rockefeller Foundation to pull it off." He says the property is so run down that any redevelopment would cost at least $8 million.
There are some possible financial incentives. Hecker says the developer and the EEDC are putting together a presentation for the governor's office, in hopes of acquiring a $5 million state grant. The site is part of a Pennsylvania Keystone Opportunity Zone, which means the developer could get tax breaks.
Hecker says the EEDC also purchased the Sprecher's Hardware building from the Sprecher family for $200,000 and is talking with a group of people interested in turning it into another retail business. He declined to give specifics, saying talks are in a delicate stage right now.
Chamber of Commerce member Brian Hoffman, owner of the Arthur M. Yeager insurance and real estate agency, agrees the Mountain Springs property is the "perfect catalyst" for the downtown's rebirth. But he has a problem with the way the borough and EEDC are handling the project. He believes the hotel vision is too limited. "The borough and the EEDC have been trying to make that work for five years. Either they don't have the expertise to land such a project, or it's not feasible for the site," he says. He suggests the EEDC also think retail, and perhaps try to turn the 8-acre property into a small Park City - a major shopping mall in Lancaster - in downtown Ephrata, which might lure other retailers to the downtown
Strategies
One revitalization goal is now reality: the installation of oldfashioned brick sidewalks and lampposts three years ago. The theory is that an aesthetically pleasing landscape would attract merchants and, in turn, shoppers. While it's a nice start, Thomas says, "it hasn't made the impact we were looking for." He says the borough has contracted many studies and through trial and error is still trying to find a formula for success.
One strategy has gotten mixed reviews from some in town. The borough's Retail Overlay District Ordinance requires any business, even a commercial one such as a doctor's or dental office, to devote a portion of its storefront to retail. The object, Nace says, is to create an uninterrupted block of retail shops to attract shoppers, just as a mall would.
The rule meant some extra legwork for Rudy Popolis. He is coowner of the Douple Agency, a downtown insurance firm. Popolis had a dilemma: He wanted to stay in town but needed more office space and parking. So, he welcomed the chance to move down the street to the larger, vacant Burkhart & Drezner building, which has a 16-space parking lot. Because the building is in the Retail Overlay District, the front of the store had to be used for retail.
Popolis says the "very supportive" zoning board gave him a slight variance, but he still must make sure his office has a retail storefront. He has no problem looking for a tenant to fill the space and says he can use help with the rent. But, he adds, 11 another business person may not have wanted to go through those extra steps."
Myron Stoltzfus, second vice president of the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce and chairman of its legislative committee, doesn't agree with the ordinance at all. He says it is the work of a "borough council that is arrogant and will not listen." As much as the owner of M&L Wholesale Foods loves Ephrata, he still considers the rule a "misguided approach - one that stymies growth ... It's not ideal for retail at all."
Possible solutions are mentioned in letters sent from the chamber's legislative committee to the borough and the EEDC. Excerpts from those letters recently published in the Ephrata Review newspaper recommended that the borough "allow offices and all permitted uses to move in, and establish low-interest loans and other incentives to encourage business."
Nace says the borough developed the ordinance with input from residents. And, he says the borough is open to change.
Bill Adair, owner of B&A Services, has managed properties in town for 14 years. Now, he says he's having a problem renting retail space. He says business really started declining with the sidewalk construction ripping up the downtown.
"It drove people away. It's a nice sidewalk, but what else is there now?" Things further deteriorated, he believes, as stores started going out of business. Some stores were replaced by several consignment shops, one of which he leases.
The Yeager agency's Hoffman says he's also having trouble renting the spaces occupied by Ephrata Medical Equipment and the antiques store on State Street. He says the many downtown properties built in the '30s and '40s present a Catch-22: "The facades are unique architecturally, but they are also antiquated. They're beautiful from the outside, but inside, they're a mechanical nightmare. They're not a retailer's dream. Any new business has to renovate extensively to make them conform to today's standards."
The other side
On the other side are those who applaud the council's efforts and say all the borough needs is a little patience, because the downtown has all the right ingredients. Chief among them is Steve Brown, manager of restaurant Lily's on Main.
"They're doing all the right things," he says of the borough. "They're there to assist. Things take time."
Brown used to be the chef at JM's in Lancaster, and jumped at the chance to manage the Ephrata restaurant formerly known as Checkers. He has been there four years and says business is good, as evidenced by the fact that reservations are often made two weeks in advance. That's no small feat, considering "this is not a convenient location - the second floor of an office building."
About half of his clientele come from Ephrata; the rest from Central Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area, drawn by his advertising. "If you make the effort to have something good, people will come," he says. He concedes downtown "needs new blood" and says the borough's task now is to "find good business people with talent. If the borough can lure good quality, people will come."
Donecker's owner Bill Donecker concurs. His advice: "Offer unique things, good service, very good taste."
Nace doesn't disagree. He says the vision is "wonderful shops, outdoor cafes, music at lunchtime," the old railway station building transformed into a visitors' center. All would be carefully and heavily marketed.
Popolis says the borough's vision is nice, but not practical. "If they can get a large store to come downtown as a drawing card, more smaller merchants might be willing to try," he says. "Until that happens, they're not going to want to take that risk."
One local person is taking the risk. Jimmy Schurr, an Ephrata native who spent seven years in the military, is back home and just bought and renovated the former Darlene's Country Kitchen on Main Street. The restaurant has been open a few weeks, and he says business is "phenomenal."
"I love Ephrata. It reminds me of Heidelberg, Germany, without the castle," he says.
