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There were stabilizing institutions on the block, including the Southern Market Center at the north end and the Salvation Army at the south end.
But the block was being destabilized by once-grand row houses that had been broken into rooming houses. Tenants rented rooms as small as 6-feet-by-10-feet for a week at a time. Illegal drug sales and prostitution were commonplace.
Left alone, Howell believed, the block could slide into despair. Armed with an aggressive plan to save it, he believed it could flourish.
On Tuesday, Howell was joined by Michael Carper, president of the Housing Development Corporation, and architect Wendy Tippetts to announce an ambitious plan for the block called South Square.
It calls for extensive renovation of 10 buildings on the west side of the block. Plans call for the demolition of additions built onto the rear of the original buildings. New, five-story additions would then be added to the buildings.
When completed, South Square will have 62 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments that would be on the "upper end of affordable housing," Carper said.
The units would rent for between $400 to $800 per month.
Carper said the new units would be prime housing for workers at the recently opened Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square hotel and Convention Center a block away.
And, Carper said, the $15 million project would solidify the neighborhood for decades to come.
Howell cautioned the handful of people who gathered for a presentation about the project in a Southern Market Center meeting room that funding for the plan still has to come together.
"It's a possible, or even probable, project, but it's not a done deal," he said.
Two-thirds of the cost of the project would come from Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency tax credits. The remaining $5 million would come from grants through the city, county, state and federal governments and private foundations, Carper said.
"We're confident that this is the kind of project that will garner significant public support," he said.
Carper said they plan to apply for the state tax credit program in February. A decision from state officials is expected by July. If all goes well, construction could start a year from now and the new units could be completed in late 2011.
The first step in the process was the acquisition of 11 buildings and a 58-space parking lot in January, Howell said. The Lancaster Alliance, a group representing major downtown employers, worked with EDC Finance, an affiliate of the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County, to purchase the properties.
The Housing Development Corporation took over as manager of the rental properties in January.
"It's been a real eye-opener for us because we don't rent property like this," said Carper, whose Lancaster-based company owns or manages more than 2,300 rental housing units in a seven-county region.
"It would be an understatement to call them deficiencies. We were appalled by the condition of these 100-year-old row houses," he said.
Although the three-story brick rowhouses appear decent from the street, Carper described the conditions inside as squalid. The eleven buildings were carved into 64 units — the smallest the size of a jail cell. The bathrooms are shared.
The rooms rented for $65 a week to people who may be able to pay the rent one week and be living on the street the next.
Carper said the smell inside the buildings was an overpowering blend of dirty sweat socks and rotting meat.
Since HDC took over in January, Carper said, standards for renters have been imposed, such as criminal background checks. The vacancy rate for the rooms has increased, he said.
The current rental units now comprise about 25,000 square, Carper said. Under the plans for South Square, there would be two fewer apartments but they would occupy 70,000 square feet, he said.
There would be a focus on energy-efficient construction, with the use of solar or thermal heating in the well-insulated buildings, Tippetts said.
With the slope of the land to the west, toward Beaver Street, the five-story additions to the three-story houses will be virtually invisible from Queen Street, Tippetts said.
