When: Manheim Township school board virtual meeting, March 11.
What happened: Lisa Douglas, Manheim Township director of planning and zoning, and Marc Munafo, president of Baltimore-based CAM Construction, explained the approval process for placing the former Stehli Silk Mill, a deteriorated property at 701 Martha Ave, in a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance program. The board made no decision during its workshop meeting.
Background: The Manheim Township Commissioners approved LERTA for revitalizing the property last month, but it also needs approval from Manheim Township School District and Lancaster County. The developer plans to spend about $35 million to convert the buildings to 165 apartments, a brewpub and one or two small office spaces.
For more than a generation, the former Stehli Silk Mill has been an empty, increasingly blighted landmark in Manheim Township.
That might change soon, but a recent look inside the buildings of the former mill shows just how much must be done to bring life back to the site.
This is the interior of the building that formerly housed Stehli Silk Mill at 701 Martha Avenue in Manheim Township Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. BLAINE SHAHAN | Staff Photographer
Over the past four decades, multipaned windows that once provided natural light for silk weavers â and later RCA workers making television picture tubes â became progressively broken as the buildings sat largely vacant.
Manheim Twp school board gets update on building project and deficit lancasteronline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lancasteronline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Stehli Silk Mill through the years [photos]
The proposed redevelopment of the vacant Stehli Silk Mill has advanced closer to becoming a reality, now that the plan has won a key approval from the Manheim Township commissioners.
The 5-0 vote Monday to approve the project s land development plan puts the $35 million apartment venture on a slightly later timetable than what was predicted most recently, in July, Baltimore developer Larry Silverstein indicated.
Read more about the proposal, here, and take a look at the history of the site, below. 1 of 12
This is the ladies dining room during lunch hour at the Stehli Silk Mill on Martha Avenue in Lancaster. It is pictured in the 1929 book, Mills of the Stehli Silks Corporation.