| by Jennifer Miller |
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Officials look for answers to county foreclosure rateCOATESVILLE - Without a slide show, architectural renditions or any other frills, developers hoping to put a grocery store and other retail shops on what is currently a contaminated, desolate site made their pitch to City Council on Monday night.
City Council did not take any action on the proposal, which the city's Redevelopment Authority approved last week. But council is expected to support or reject the plan at its May 11 meeting.
Mosaic Development Partners, a Philadelphia company that formed less than a year ago, agreed with the authority to purchase the land for $2 million. City Council must sign off on the agreement.
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| by J.W. Elphinstone |
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Drop in home prices slows, at last
NEW YORK - In another sign the housing crisis could be reaching the bottom, a drop in home prices in February, while sharp, was not a record fall - the first time in 25 months that has happened.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index released yesterday showed home prices in 20 major cities tumbled by 18.6 percent from February 2008. That was slightly better than January's 19 percent decline and the first time since January 2007 the index didn't set a record for the amount of the fall.
All 20 cities in the report - which does not include Philadelphia - showed monthly and annual price declines. Prices fell by more than 10 percent in 15 of the cities, including Las Vegas, San Francisco and Phoenix. In fact, Phoenix home prices have lost more than half their value since peaking in July 2006.
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| by Barbara Ormsby |
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Morton is the latest to battle billboards
MORTON - Bartkowski Investment Group Inc., the company seeking zoning relief to permit billboards in Springfield, Marple and Haverford townships, has made an application to the zoning hearing board to construct a non-accessory outdoor advertising billboard sign on the Morton side of Baltimore Pike.
Borough Solicitor Jay Wills said the application is for a site in a small strip shopping center at 407 Baltimore Pike, near Kohl's, owned by George Athanasiadis. Wills said the sign would be a free-standing monopole at a height of 50 feet.
"The proposed 50-foot height of the billboard would exceed the height of every building that presently exists in Morton Borough," Wills said, adding that the proposed size of the sign face would be 816 square feet.
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