Save Our Steel in the News

Developer seeks input on future of BethWorks

Council, interested organizations to be heard as Perrucci group weighs options.

Monday, May 17, 2004
By GREGG W. BORTZ
The Express-Times

BETHLEHEM -- The likely new owner of the Bethlehem Works area is getting an earful of opinions about what to do with the site.

Philipsburg attorney and developer Michael Perrucci leads an investment group called BethWorks Now, which has an agreement to buy the 160-acre south-side property from International Steel Group.

Perrucci's group is contacting local officials and organizations to get an understanding of what the community wants done with the site.

And the group doesn't even own it.

Perrucci has yet to actually close a deal, but for that matter, all Bethlehem Steel land sales are still pending.

"We're still working on it," Perrucci said. "We do have it under contract. We're working on our due diligence."

Perrucci said he's met privately with "various groups," but wouldn't divulge them specifically, citing a "quiet period" of negotiation with ISG.

City Council President J. Michael Schweder said Perrucci has made overtures but hasn't met with council.

Schweder said he's talked with Perrucci because they're friends.

"He did say he wanted to very soon meet with members of city council," Schweder said. "I suggested I'd be happy to work with him on that or he could seek them out individually."

But the prospective new owners are also talking with organizations that want a piece of the former Steel land for their own use, according to state Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Lehigh/Northampton, also a friend of Perrucci.

"They're reaching out to relevant and interested parties, the people who have expressed an opinion or a vision." Rooney said.

Mayor John Callahan said he's already met with interested parties and expects to roll out a formal "visioning" process involving everyone who has a plan for the Steel site.

They include the National Museum of Industrial History, Musikfest parent organization ArtsQuest, Northampton Community College, historic preservationists and the Steelworkers' Archives, a group dedicated to preserving and displaying steelworker culture in Bethlehem.

Northampton Community College is seeking state matching funds for a $10 million project to turn former Steel offices into a college campus for 2,000 students.

The South Bethlehem campus project, which entails purchasing and renovating the Bethlehem Steel East Annex at 715 E. Third St., has been identified as one of the college's top priorities.

NCC President Arthur Scott said he's remained in contact with Callahan and Perrucci.

"We feel good about it," Scott said. "Through the entire process of the past 18 months as different groups and developers have been involved, we have always been with them and the local leaders."

Scott said the college doesn't have a specific timetable, but said "we need the space desperately."

"The community college has exhibited a great deal of patience," Rooney said. "I do believe it's going to occur. Sooner rather than later is better."

Scott said the college's advantage is it can "move in right away."

The Smithsonian-affiliated industrial museum already owns a 37,000-square-foot building at the site and is now trying to raise enough money to begin renovation work.

Other ideas aren't as far along.

ArtsQuest president Jeff Parks envisions a multimillion-dollar riverside arts park at the site, but he has yet to provide details about the plan.

The Steelworkers' Archive and preservation group Save our Steel have been raising their profiles with efforts to keep historic Steel buildings from getting demolished, but they have no specific plan for the site.

Callahan wants a planning process including Perrucci and community members to reshape Steel's decade-old plan for Bethlehem Works.

Rooney said Perrucci's group is committed to developing the site in accordance with community wishes.

"I think we're fortunate to have people that civic-minded and willing to go to those great lengths" to accommodate the community, Rooney said.

"I think his reaching out to people in the community is a very good sign," Schweder said. But "we all need to be realistic about what's doable out there."

The state and city have invested or at least promised to invest millions of dollars at the site.

"Everybody -- the state, the city and the region -- have a collected, vested interest in seeing to it that land is ready for development," Rooney said.

Giving the state and city a return on investment -- in jobs and tax revenue -- is expected of the developer, as is meeting the community's general plan for the site.

"Therein lay the search" for a developer, Rooney said.

Perrucci is a prominent and politically connected attorney who is a law partner of former New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio. He also has developed real estate in western New Jersey.

For Perrucci, the Steel site provides a chance to redevelop a prominent industrial site, just as he planned to do in Phillipsburg.

Perrucci led an investment group that once had a contract to redevelop the Ingersoll Rand site on Route 22, but the contract was cancelled late last year when Ingersoll Rand decided to develop the project itself.

Meanwhile Rooney and Schweder fostered efforts for two years to get Bethlehem Works into the hands of the Philadelphia-area union pension trust Delaware Valley Real Estate Investment Fund.

Delaware Valley never signed an agreement and its talks with ISG finally collapsed last month.

Reporter Gregg W. Bortz can be reached at 610-867-5000 or by e-mail at gbortz@express-times.com.

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