‘No one knows what a biodome is’: Plan to build Da Vinci Science Center in Easton collapses

Saying Easton has withdrawn support for the project, the Da Vinci Science Center will not move forward with plans to build a $120 million science center in the city’s downtown, officials announced Wednesday.Lin Erickson, Da Vinci’s executive director and CEO, said in a statement that the decision was made after learning of Easton’s “intention to rescind its previous financial commitment to support the project and to provide the Easton-owned site on Third Street.”Da Vinci now will move forward with plans to build the science center elsewhere in the Lehigh Valley, Erickson said. The nonprofit organization that runs the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown had proposed a 130,000-square-foot science center featuring a NatureDome and 100-foot-tall Vitruvian Man at the corner of Larry Holmes Drive and South Third Street.“We’ve made significant progress toward the planning and fundraising for the project, which can be transferred and adapted to a new site,” Erickson said.Mayor Sal Panto Jr. told City Council on Wednesday evening that his administration grew leery of the project as it was whittled down to a 70,000-square-foot facility with a “NatureDome” to avoid competing with a proposed aquarium in the Poconos. “The goal post kept being moved. The changes in the size, the scope. Everyone knows what an aquarium is. No one knows what a biodome is,” Panto said.City officials had committed up to $30 million to the project under a “self-liquidating model,” where the city would take out a bond and pay it back with money generated from the facility, Panto explained.But that would be risky to the city if the science center had a bad year.So, city officials proposed Da Vinci put up the money for the science center on their own, Panto said. In exchange, fees such as an amusement tax from ticket sales that would normally go back to the city, would instead go to Da Vinci.City officials also considered the idea of a third-party developer coming on board to add another project to the site like a hotel. Taxes paid on that project could have been used to help pay down the science center debt, so that the city’s contribution would “look more like $12 million instead of $30 million,” Panto said.“The more we looked at this project over the last two years, the more we got very uncomfortable with it,” he said. “We can’t give our full faith and credit to a project that we don’t know what the 20-year lifespan is going to be.”As the project continued to be scaled down, Panto said city officials felt they couldn’t dedicate 3 acres to it — the city’s largest undeveloped parcel in the downtown.Panto proposed another unspecified location in Easton that would have saved Da Vinci money because it was outside the flood plain, but at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Da Vinci officials abruptly contacted the city to say they would not be moving forward.Brian Strohecker, Da Vinci’s director of business development, said the nonprofit plans to provide an update on other potential locations later this summer.News of the deal’s failure caught many Easton and Northampton County officials off-guard Wednesday afternoon.“I was very enthusiastic because I think Easton should have nice things, too,” said Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, who learned of the deal’s collapse from a Morning Call reporter. “It’s unfortunate if in fact it’s not going to go forward.”The county had offered financial assistance for the SteelStacks project in Bethlehem years ago and was in talks to provide some funding for the science center.Panto told Da Vinci officials May 7 that the city could no longer commit to the original terms, including making the city-owned Days Inn property available to the science center, Strohecker said.On Tuesday, Da Vinci’s expansion committee reviewed the city’s revised terms and recommended to Da Vinci’s Board of Trustees that negotiations be terminated. Da Vinci’s board voted unanimously on Wednesday to end negotiations, Strohecker said.Easton Councilman Peter Melan, a skeptic of the proposal, voted last month against giving Da Vinci an extension on a developer’s agreement with the city, saying he doubted the group could raise enough money to make its dream a reality.“Every time I asked a question, I felt like I was getting a wall thrown back at me,” Melan said.On Wednesday, Panto said the city will issue a request for proposal seeking bids for the former Days Inn property.A committee of 12-15 community members, including a Realtor and finance person would be set up to review the proposals. City officials might also consider subdividing the property into smaller tracts, an idea Da Vinci officials were against, Panto said.“I can tell you that three years ago the city was anxious for something. Today, we are not anxious. We can be a little bit stingy about who we let in. … Some people have spent thousands of dollars to submit proposals to the city,” Panto said.Financial backing Elected leaders and Da Vinci officials originally praised the proposed $130 million project when they announced it in November 2016. Da Vinci was quickly outgrowing its existing location on the Cedar Crest College campus in Allentown and had approached the Lehigh Valley’s three cities with plans for a second location.Attendance had jumped more than 70% between 2009 and 2015, and popular attractions like its Ice Cream Wars event drew overflow crowds.Panto offered the best deal to Da Vinci, committing up to $30 million in financial support and a location. In January 2018, the city purchased the former Days Inn for $5.9 million, which Panto considered an eyesore, and demolished it to make room for the project.The administration assured City Council that even if the deal fell through, the city would be protected because it could sell the land to a new developer and be rid of a troublesome property.Panto and Erickson publicly rallied around the tentative deal and sets their sights on bringing in needed funding. Lehigh Valley state Sens. Pat Browne and Lisa Boscola landed a $20 million grant for the project. A lame-duck Northampton County Council also threw its support behind the project when it awarded it a controversial $10 million grant in one of its last official acts.But issues quickly emerged. In January 2018, Da Vinci announced an aquarium feature, which was the highlight of its public pitches, would not be included in order to receive the state funding. As a result, the new Northampton County Council withdrew the grant even as it offered general support for the project.Some council members said they were angered Da Vinci didn’t inform them ahead of time about the pending change. Others said the amount was never appropriate in the first place ― the original proposal was for $1 million, not $10 million.And despite all the government pledges, private funding appeared to lag.The two sides were supposed to reach a deal by November, but city officials kept offering Da Vinci extensions to reach an agreement that never came.
Source: Morningcall