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Nah, I avoid parades like the plague. I don't know why exactly, but even as a kid, I have always hated them...
Wow big news, Chris, and congrats!!!! Now we will have even
less of a chance of meeting up I presume.
Even more proof that things are on the rebound in South Allison Hill (until this branch gets robbed repeatedly and is forced to close its doors).
J/K, I think this will really work out:
PNC is banking on Allison Hill
Activists, residents cheer plans for branch at 13th and Derry streets
Sunday, March 20, 2005
BY APARNA KUMAR
Of The Patriot-News
The most densely populated neighborhood in Harrisburg has a food bank and a clothing bank to serve its low-income residents. But what the people of Allison Hill haven't had for years is a bank for their money.
That will change. PNC Bank plans to open a full-service branch at 13th and Derry streets in south Allison Hill by the end of the summer. It will occupy a vacant building that was once home to competitor Wachovia.
Dennis P. Brenckle, president of the central Pennsylvania region for Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, said the company has historically looked for opportunities to build branches in low- to moderate-income areas.
"This particular location has been around for a while," Brenckle said. "Many have been called; few chose to go. We were finally chosen, and we chose to go there."
Community activists and residents are cheering.
"We are so pleased to have a bank of the stature of PNC coming to the neighborhood," said Linda Figueroa, executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Commission, which leased the building to the bank in February. "We are just tickled to death."
South Allison Hill is southeast of the Capitol Complex. Its boundaries are Market Street, 18th Street, Paxton Street and Cameron Street.
"This particular area used to be a very vibrant, self-contained neighborhood," Figueroa said. "There were factories, row houses. People lived close together, but they had their own grocery stores, jewelry stores and bakeries. ... But as people moved out, the services moved out."
Scarred by the flight of people to the suburbs in the 1950s and '60s, the neighborhood became one of city's poorest and most crime-afflicted. With a population of about 6,500 that is roughly 50 percent black and 25 percent Hispanic, it also is one of the city's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The residents speak many languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, Arabic, Farsi and French, Figueroa said.
In recent years, the area around 13th and Derry streets has become a hub for revitalization. Community Action Commission and other area organizations have poured money into the neighborhood to rehabilitate housing and give a boost to local business. Mount Pleasant Plaza, a commercial development directly across from the bank site, has a grocery store -- Pak's Food Market -- a Subway restaurant, a laundry and a Jackson Hewitt Tax Service center.
PNC is the largest bank based in Pennsylvania, with nearly $80 billion in assets and 776 branches in nine states. The bank views its role in lower-income communities as a chance to be a good corporate citizen -- but it also needs to make a profit.
"These locations, like the one on Derry Street, have a social responsibility attached to it as well as a profitability attached to it," Brenckle said. "We believe that in that particular location, we will be able to do both."
The bank expects most of its business at the branch will come from small-business and consumer deposits, rather than investment services. The branch will be open six days a week, with 24-hour, multilingual ATMs.
Christopher Rockey, vice president and community development officer at the bank, was instrumental in bringing the branch to Allison Hill. He plans to move his office to the branch. "We're hoping this will be the cornerstone of the community," he said.
Wachovia closed its branch at 13th and Derry in June 2002 and donated the building to Community Action Commission, a nonprofit neighborhood development agency. The bank, which still has an ATM at the site, would not comment on the reasons for its departure. William Loesch, 39, a deli clerk at Pak's Food Market, said he heard last year that a police station was going to be built there. He would rather have the police across the street than a bank -- "too much crime," he said.
But Loesch, who walks about 15 minutes to get to his bank, added, "a bank would be nice, too."
Aimee Vigon, a 19-year-old college student who was shopping at the market, said she will open an account at PNC. She has to walk 30 minutes to get to her bank, since she doesn't have a car.
"I think it's better to go to a bank that's closer," she said. "It helps people who have disabilities and the elderly who live here."
David Quintero, 53, a temporary laborer who lives in the neighborhood and speaks mostly Spanish, broke into a smile when told the bank was moving in.
"Yes, it's good! Thank you very much," he said. "All my friends -- people who work here -- have to go downtown."
Kelly Gonzalez, 34, a chef at Lugaro's Pizza, which is also at 13th and Derry streets, said people in the neighborhood often ask whether they can cash their paychecks at the shop.
"It'll be good that, if you have a PNC account, you can cash your check right here," he said.
Jesus Lugaro, 41, the pizza shop's owner, said he has to trek to the Harrisburg Mall to do his banking at Wachovia. He said he'll switch to PNC; "I won't have to drive."
Figueroa said the bank will bring more than just convenience for Allison Hill residents and business owners.
"Banking is one of the classic services that almost everyone takes for granted, but there should be a safe place to deposit your funds," she said. "We hope that by the bank coming to the neighborhood we will discourage the various check-cashing stores that charge usurious fees."
In addition to its line of free checking products, the bank will offer special free checking accounts for people with damaged credit through its new Foundation Checking program, which incorporates financial literacy counseling.
PNC offers financial literacy courses at the nearby YWCA. Topics have included budgeting, banking basics, managing credit, smart borrowing, and savings and investing. The branch will serve as another venue for those classes.
"The goal is to help consumers get out of the cycle of being unbanked," said PNC spokesman Rob Rutz. He said poor families can save up to 40 percent of their incomes by having a checking account, rather than relying on fee-based check-cashing or wiring services.
Dauphin County Commissioner Nick DiFrancesco hailed PNC's moving in as "one of the most important neighborhood projects that's taking place in the county."
"What we tend to see across the nation is banks pulling out of neighborhoods like Allison Hill," he said. "To really have a healthy neighborhood community, you have to have a bank -- you need that just to support the economic vitality of the area."
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