Harrisburg, Capital Region Water both make pitch for millions in infrastructure grants

Impact Harrisburg mayor.jpg

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse (at left) and other city officials met with members of the Impact Harrisburg board Thursday to make a pitch for grant money.

HARRISBURG- The city of Harrisburg and Capital Region Water both made their cases Thursday to win infrastructure grants from Impact Harrisburg, a nonprofit established by the city's financial recovery plan.

But the proposals put forth carried a pricetag of $19 million, more than triple the amount of money available, illustrating the deep extent of the city's deferred maintenance of its roads, sewers, streetlights and more.

Just less than $6 million is available from the nonprofit, which is "a drop in the bucket," conceded Neil Grover, chairman of the nonprofit.

The nonprofit controls about $13 million in public money generated from the city's sale of its incinerator and long-term lease of its parking assets in 2013. The money was split evenly into two pots for distribution: one to address infrastructure needs and one to stimulate economic development.

Officials from Capital Region Water detailed eight projects they would like to fund with Impact Harrisburg money.


Impact Harrisburg is responsible for doling out the money in grants to boost the city's financial recovery. City officials and Capital Region Water, formerly known as the Harrisburg Authority, are the only entities allowed to apply for infrastructure grants.

Grover said he hoped to distribute all the money for infrastructure by the end of the year.

To that end, the city made its pitch to the Impact Harrisburg Board Thursday for the entire $6 million infrastructure pot. The city would like $3.1 million to pay off a bank loan to replace all of the city's streetlights with energy-efficient LED streetlights and $3 million for a multi-modal project to improve sections of Berryhill, Second, Seventh and 17th streets.

If Impact Harrisburg helped the city pay off its loan for streetlights, City Engineer Wayne Martin said it would free up more than $422,000 annually, which could be used to seal 500,000 linear feet of cracks in roads, repair 63,000 square feet of potholes and pave more than two miles of neighborhood streets every year.

Without the infusion of cash, the city would be stuck with its annual appropriation of $200,000 to address all street repairs, which doesn't go very far, Martin said.

For the multi-modal project, the city would like to improve pedestrian safety along several heavily traveled routes, and change a section of North Second Street from a one-way street, back to a two-way. Martin noted that one-third of city residents don't own vehicles and rely on walking and bicycling to get around.

While the city's two proposals were very specific, Capital Region proposed flexible rehabilitation projects, several of which could be done in conjunction with the city. The water authority asked for $13.3 million from Impact Harrisburg to prop up eight projects costing $32 million. (The rest of the money would come from grants or matching money.)

The first project would employ strategies to reduce the volume of stormwater entering the sewer system, including using "green" roofs on city buildings, and converting blighted properties to green space. The authority is under a partial consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to take action on this, said Shannon Williams, Capital Region's chief executive officer.

Another project would replace critical sections of the sanitary and sewer collection system in danger of imminent failure to avoid sinkholes and continue operations. The authority also needs to find out why an underground water storage tank in Reservoir Park is leaking and fix it.

Most proposals presented to the Impact Harrisburg board Thursday involved matching grant money from other sources. The city, for example, wants a grant from Impact Harrisburg to use as leverage to free up some of the $10 million in promised aid from PennDot that requires matching money.

Capital Region also asked for $3 million to screen combined wastewater to free up a $2.5 million grant from PennVEST.

The money from Impact Harrisburg would be best used if it can leverage as much money from other sources as possible, Grover said.

After the presentations Thursday, Capital Region Water Board Chairman Marc Kurowski addressed the elephant in the room by asking whether the pursuit of the infrastructure grants was a competition with the city or whether they were supposed to work cooperatively.

Board members of the nonprofit said they wanted the agencies to work together and projects that would most benefit residents. They asked officials from both agencies to come up with a list of prioritized projects where they could collaborate for the $6 million available and best leverage matching money.

Sheila Dow-Ford, executive director of Impact Harrisburg, said they would soon release applications to the entities with specific directions. The agencies would then have one month to return their official proposals.

Impact Harrisburg has not yet released details on the process to apply for economic development grants, which is open to anyone.