In Cambria County, plans for the old Ebensburg jail are still in the works, but things have been very slow going.
“It’s just the details that these… the land, the property transactions that are becoming frustrating and just slow and slowing the project down,” said Borough Manager Dan Penatzer.
There has not been much movement in plans to transform the jail into a brew-pub/cafe since 2014 when county commissioners got the County Redevelopment Authority on board.
“In any project that involves government it seems there’s so many different agencies that have to become involved, even more so here because the building’s on the national register of historic places,” Penatzer said. “So it becomes a complicated process and months turn into years and one year turns into several years, and it can become frustrating for everybody.”
It only took a few months for local developer Sheldon Piepenburg to join the multi-million dollar project, originally planned to open as a business in Fall 2017. The grant money to help them do so will not be around forever, though.
“The project is gonna cost much more than $250,000, but $250,000 is nothing to sneeze at,” Penatzer said. “So we want to make sure the developer’s able to take advantage of that. We’ve renewed it now for one more year and we are concerned that will be the last extension.”
They also have to move the public records office out of the building.
“We want to do everything possible in the best way to secure records and make sure they’re safe and public has access to records and do it the right way and get them out of the old prison,” said President Commissioner Tom Chernisky.
“If we can’t get the project done, this is an awfully large white elephant right in the center of our downtown,” Penatzer said. “We don’t want to miss this opportunity to get a business in here, to get a real good reuse of this old historic building.”
Penatzer said none of the people involved in the project are ready to call it quits, but the next few meetings they have planned are crucial if they are ever going to transform the jail into something useful again.