Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Tax Credit Year 3 Recap

Due to Fiscal Year 2015-2016 budget challenges, the status of Year 3 of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit program was up in the air through March 2016.  With the enactment of a budget, there was a brief application window with a March 24, 2016 deadline. The shortened budget period did impact the total number of applications to the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) as the total decreased from 30 in the second round to 23 applications for the third round.

PHMC quickly reviewed the applications to ensure applicants owned qualified historic buildings and that proposed rehabilitation plans met the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.  As the qualified applications far exceed the limited $3 million in available credits, DCED used a fair and balanced selection process based on a first -come, first serve basis with regional distribution to select the first round of projects. 

The Duquesne Brewing Company Brew House, Allegheny County.

To understand the potential economic impact of these 23 proposed projects, here is a general overview of the applicants:

• The applicants requested a total of $9,320,758 in tax credits for projects with the 23 projects representing an estimated $405,913,054 of construction expenditures, which will generate local and state taxes through payroll, material purchases, real estate taxes and other revenue streams that would offset the $3 million in state tax credits.
• There was broad regional distribution but no applications were submitted from the Northwest region.  As there are a few projects in the pipeline for Erie, Lawrence and Warren counties, we anticipate all regions to be represented in FY 2016-17. Here is the distribution for the current round (10 in SE PA, 6 in NE PA, 3 in Central PA and 4 in SW PA)
• Ultimately, 16 projects in 7 counties received tax credits with building types including a YMCA converted into a hotel (East Liberty YMCA into ACE Hotel in Pittsburgh), a brewery converted into artist gallery/residence facility (Duquesne Brew House into Brew House Artist Lofts in Pittsburgh) , a silk mill complex converted into a commercial and residential center (RH Simon Silk Mill in Easton), a school converted into affordable senior housing (Spring Garden School No. 1 in Philadelphia) and an early automobile factory and salesroom in loft apartments (Pullman Building in York).

The Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Reading, Berks County.

Here is a list of the historic buildings that received the Fiscal Year 2015-16 Historic Preservation Tax Credits allocation of $3 million by region:

The Spring Garden School No. 1 in Philadelphia.

East Liberty YMCA, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County.

The Pullman Building, York, York County.

The Simon Silk Mill in Easton, Northampton County.