Kildare's Coming to Downtown Scranton (Dallas: hotel, zoned, price)

[John From Scranton]

Originally Posted by nkotb

The bars in downtown Scranton coming and going is nothing new !! YEARS ago when I was young and single, my friends and I did happy hour almost every night. Then it was 'The Board Room' - 'Club C & C' then came 'Attilios' and so on !! Anyway, my point is we easily got board with going to the same haunt, so as soon as a new bar opened we frequented that happy hour. The downtown Scranton happy hour crowd were like ants -- as soon as the sugar was gone on one hill we moved in mass to the next hill !!!!!!!!!! Thank God those days are over !!!!!

OMG!! What a post!! I did the same thing when I was younger!! You are soo right.. One bar to the next.. Im glad aswell them days are over!

[nkotb]

Originally Posted by John From Scranton

OMG!! What a post!! I did the same thing when I was younger!! You are soo right.. One bar to the next.. Im glad aswell them days are over!

And, that first bar closed when the new one opened !! It was like the domino effect !

[The Commish]

Originally Posted by go phillies

I'm sure you were making the mortgage payment, right?

You certainly weren't.

[casper]

Where do I begin on this topic?. This is a bold move for kildares. First off, Kildares undoubtedly is a classic Irish restaurant. Molley brannigans is classic but rundown. The last thing kildares needed to do is go from a great move by moving out of the area (moosic) and then make a bold move by moving within a block of competition. That is like putting a mcarthys cab station right next to a posten cab station. Lets face it, St. Pattys day is sure to rock this year. Every club new or old is going to be packed. So, If kildares plans to make a statement, they better get moving. Quick!.
As for the construction downtown. I once was a critic of Mayor Doherty. I kinda sorta still am. I believe change can be a great thing. If change brings jobs and people to the area, then why not?. If Scranton residents care much for the city, then they need to stop bitching so much and be proud not of the mayor or city council, but the city itself.
For the past 8 years, Yes, money has gone down a drain. but, abandoned depleted buildings have vanished. Parks have been restored. new business' and clubs have scratched and clawed their way into scranton. Back in the early 90s what did we have?. No mall. The worst parks in the state. Now..Can we say the same?.
I dont like this mayor anymore than anyone else. But lets face the facts...scranton's nightlife is on fire.
We have two of the best universitys in the nation. a medical school. 4 technical schools. We have three great highschools. We cant be worrying about stupid political **** anymore. Lets rally around what our mayor is doing. Because in the longrun, We al are going to look back and say "mayor doherty fixed that place up". I dont like the fact that its my tax dollars being wasted on stupid **** sometimes...but if its going to bring jobs and fix our economy..then **** it.

[weluvpa]

Originally Posted by casper

I dont like the fact that its my tax dollars being wasted on stupid **** sometimes...but if its going to bring jobs and fix our economy..then **** it.

But it is being wasted and its not bringing anything in...If it was working then why is the most state of the art building in the city still empty. The only thing that I see is a facade of PR photo op's to hide the unsurmountable debt that has been created. $350,000 dog park?

[chezbowski]

I work at MetLife across the street from The Shoppes and love watching it fail. As they were clearing out that land, we got a list of tenants that were coming, and while most were crap we already had, there were some new names on there that I was interested in seeing coming to the area. Of course, with the exception of a couple women's clothing shoppes, nothing different came.

The only thing that The Shoppes have brought to my experiences on the Mountain is more traffic. I'd hate to see what it would be like if the place was ever busy. Even worse would be if they ever build the Target and Lowe's behind the Movie Theater that was planned while The Shoppes were being put up.

[GreenRidgeGuy]

I always find it amusing when people say there are no jobs downtown. The U has over 2000 employees alone. My wife and I both work downtown. There are plenty of jobs downtown. I am in the same boat as casper. It's one thing not to like the current administration, but you can still support the city. Support local businesses. As for Kildare's moving downtown, I don't think the downtown needs another mediocre "Irish" chair restaurant, but tax dollars are tax dollars and it is one less empty building. I would argue for supporting the Banshee over either of the "Irish" chains.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by GreenRidgeGuy

It's one thing not to like the current administration, but you can still support the city.

Exactly. Would you mind telling this to our forum "Debbie Downers" who rain and p*ss all over my parade every time I try to post something optimistic about the Electric City? They know I'm not a proponent of the mayor. Nevertheless I'm vilified because I see the potential that perhaps 200 new residents living in the Connell Building could mean for the nourishment of existing downtown businesses and the creation of new business ventures (including one that I am now seriously considering---stay tuned!)

At the very least while the Southern Union Building may be a "white elephant" people visiting our city have no idea that it is really an over-glorified eye sore thanks to the Merrill Lynch logo emblazoned on the facade. There's an old adage that goes "sell them the sizzle, not the steak." That's what Mayor Doherty can do here. We had family from Atlanta in recently, and we dined at Brixx in Downtown Scranton. They commented on the Merrill Lynch logo, and I did not correct them. Why put a damper on things when they left the city that day seeing visible progress since they relocated to the South from Dallas? Same goes for the 500-block of Lackawanna Avenue. I'd rather see BEAUTIFUL abandoned buildings as opposed to collapsing ones.

[casper]

Let's put it this way. The so selected few can ***** and moan about our city. We can pout and spit tears saying how depressed we are about no jobs in the city. But the fact is, change doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. I never trusted the mayor and probably never will. But with or without supporting the mayor, busines is still going to move in and move out. Scranton's nightlife is a ticking timebomb. Everyone might say, "Well, it's the students that give the city a bad image". Wrong. If it wasn't for the students coming to scranton out of the so many colleges they had their choice from, Scranton Would be a ghost town. You take University of Scranton, Marywood, Lackawanna and all the medical & technical schools away and tell me if Scranton can exist?. Nope. Why? Because even though the students are from different countries..they have thier family fly in to visit. THATS tourism.
I give scranton nightlife 1 more year and you watch what happens. Buildings are constantly going up. Ever since the office show exploded on the scene, Scranton has caught fire. Again, I dont like to say our mayor is right. But he is. scranton is on the verge of makeing a very big statement. business' want a part of scranton.
I DESPISE our current council majority and hope the two nitwits get the boot. But becareful in may on choosing..we want to go forward not backward.
I didnt want to admit it..but...Doherty 2009.

[weluvpa]

Scrantons nightlife has NOT Changed once since I have been in high school. Bars and or clubs come and go, but to hang the revival of the downtown on bars and college kids doesn't make long term sense. The U kids for the most part don't stray too far away from the intersection of Taylor and Mulberry and never have. The Green Frog is still close enough to get the crowds but the students do NOT come downtown in mass to drink.


Other then Nay Aug what has the mayor really done to ECONOMICALLY improve the city?

Did he lower the wage tax like he promised?
Has he lowered the Mercantile tax?
Has he lifted the distressed status? or even tried?
Has he increased our revenues and decreased our debt?
Has he settled the UNion contracts?


NO, but he did give us a 25% tax increase and hundreds of millions of long term debt that our grand kids will be paying down.

$16,000,000 A YEAR JUST TO MAKE OUR DEBT PAYMENTS.

$350,000 dog park that is still the most expensive dog park in the nation and its still not done...

Southern Union is STILL empty so why do we assume that these other buildings will be full?

Mayor Doherty has done nothing, but put up a facade of losely put together projects that is meant to hide the $16,000,000 in new hires and raises.......record setting budgets......Hundreds of millions in debt......64 newly created positions in the admin..........no police and fire contracts......

All this while the neighborhoods are falling apart, the mayor does not care about you or I or our neighborhoods.....He only cares about the select few that have been choosen to recieve public funds to build his empty projects..

The 500 block and Connell building will be a great photo-ops during this election year, but will sit empty for years to come, just like the SU building.

There is ALREADY tremendous amount of empty office and retail space in the downtown so why do we need to build more if we cannot fill what we already have here NOW.

He ran on the platform that he was going to run this city like a business.......Well you guys seem to be smart...What would happen to a business that had a huge drop off in revenues while increasing its debt load to astronomical heights?