LNP | Lancaster Online article
Thirteen years after the Lancaster YMCA closed its longtime city home at Queen and Frederick streets the final redevelopment plan to remake the area got underway Tuesday with a groundbreaking ceremony for Queen Street Flats.
The new, $100 million project calls for the construction of a four-story apartment building, a five-story apartment building, a three-story medical building, first-floor retail space, and a 440-space parking garage tucked between the medical building and a PPL electricity system substation on an adjacent lot.
The medical office building is slated to open in 18 months with the entire project expected to take two years to build.
The urban mixed-use development is the culmination of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health’s longstanding ambition to remake the property adjacent to its Lancaster General Hospital complex and across Prince Street from Clipper Magazine Stadium’s front parking lot.
Lancaster General Health has tried twice before to redevelop the site, only to run into financing snags. This time Lancaster General Health secured the necessary approvals for the project but will be selling the property to Exton-based Hankin Group to actually develop it.
“This is truly an example of the power of partnership, collaboration and determination,” Lancaster General Health CEO John J. Herman said at the Tuesday morning groundbreaking ceremony held under a white tent on the property.
“In addition to enhancing access to health-care services, Queen Street Flats will positively contribute to Lancaster’s capacity to provide quality residential options, conveniently located among the county’s urban core,” Herman said, while adding that having more housing near the hospital could help with employee recruitment.
Queen Street Flats to dress up the north side of Lancaster city
Personnel from Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, who in partnership with Lancaster city, the High Construction Group and the Hankin Group, turned out for a ceremony to break ground and introduce their plans for Queen Street Flats.
QSF will house two new apartment buildings with 244 units, a parking garage with 440 spaces, along with a 3-story 30,000 square foot medical building, all to be located on the former site of the YMCA along the 500 block of N. Queen and W. Frederick Streets.
Construction will get underway immediately for this $100 million project. The medical building will be finished be in 18 months and completion of the entire project will be in two years.
The biggest aspect of the Queen Streets Flats project are the two quadrangle apartment buildings that will have 244 combined residential units including efficiency apartments, and one-, two, and three-bedroom units that will be rented at market rates. The four-story building bounded by North Prince and West Frederick streets will have a pool in its courtyard.
Next to the apartment buildings will be a 30,000-square-foot medical office building that will be used by Lancaster General Health to house an urgent care center and two primary physician groups. The parking garage will be tucked between the medical building and a PPL substation on an adjacent lot.
“We’re really excited to get started on this after everyone’s extensive planning,” said Bob Hankin, president and CEO of Hankin Group, an Exton, Chester County-based developer that is partnering with Lancaster General Health to develop Queen Street Flats.
Later this month, Hankin Group is slated to buy the property for an undisclosed price from Lancaster General Health, develop the property, and then lease the medical office building back to Lancaster General Health, according to John Lines, a Lancaster General Health spokesperson. High Construction is the general contractor for the project.
Historic buildings part of project
Work is beginning imminently with the relocation of some utilities and then the demolition of some remaining buildings on the site later this month.
A building that won’t be demolished is the circa-1868 building and carriage house at the corner of North Prince and Frederick streets. The original plans for the project called for those buildings to be torn down, but they were incorporated into the final plan at the insistence of city officials.
The former tavern at 48 W. Frederick St. was last occupied by Bob’s Café in 2003. Along with the circa-1917 carriage house behind it, it will remain intact and will have first-floor retail space and a residence on the second floor.
Douglas Smith, chief planner for Lancaster city, lauded the developers for finding a way to incorporate the historic buildings into the project.
“I think they went above and beyond on this and really showed that it’s possible to preserve our history and create a high-quality development,” Smith said at the Tuesday morning groundbreaking ceremony.
The Lancaster YMCA had occupied the Queen Street building beginning in 1967 and then expanded into the adjacent property along Prince Street in the mid-1980s. The two YMCA buildings have been vacant since September 2009, when the YMCA moved to a new building on Harrisburg Avenue.
While plans were being developed for the parcel, Lancaster General Health razed some deteriorating structures in 2018 and replaced them with green space and a walkway.
Lancaster General Hospital, a Lancaster General Health forerunner, originally purchased the 1.8-acre YMCA property for $4.9 million in 2005, the first of multiple tracts it bought since then in the 3.5-acre parcel bounded by North Queen, North Prince and West Frederick streets.
A previous plan to develop the property just across North Queen Street from a Lancaster General Health parking garage called for construction of a five-story, 175,000-square-foot administrative office building. To facilitate that project, the hospital got the area rezoned in 2012 from residential to “hospital campus,” a zoning designation that had to be changed for Queen Street Flats.