Civil Municipal - June 2024

restored building, has been newly established in the core, bringing charming accommodations to the downtown landscape. Mayor Gerace also points to the borough’s train station that was built in 1874 and how the extensive effort to save the station and bring it back to life has been a focus. It’s now home to a wonderful restaurant known as the “Tamaqua Station Restaurant’’ and the station was recently featured on a U.S. postal stamp. To mark this venerable station’s significance, passenger trains have run through for special events on the brand new train platform. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS Much of this growth and resurgence can be attributed to economic development initiatives like the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program and the Community Revitalization and Improvement Zone (C.R.I.Z.) that Tamaqua has leveraged to breathe new life into the area. However, Dan Evans, Chairman of the Tamaqua C.R.I.Z.Authority acknowledges that the impact can be traced back two decades or more, to the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership. He conveys, “The partnership has a big role in what you see up and down Broad Street, it’s stopped some of the decay and began to reverse that process that we saw when coal ended. 20 years ago, they began to lay out a variety of strategies for the community, things like downtown revitalization.”Along with the Tamaqua Chamber of Commerce, Evans says the borough is supported by regional entities such as the Schuylkill County Chamber, Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance, and Wilkes University Small Business Development Group, adding, “There’s a whole list of people behind what happens here, it just depends on what your area of interest or expertise is, as to where you fall in line in that list.” He asserts that while initiatives like the C.R.I.Z. programs have provided additional tools for progress, much of the rejuvenation has stemmed from the dedicated work of these organizations, along with strong support from former State Representative Jerry Knowles, current State Representative Jamie Barton, Senator Dave Argall, and Congressman Dan Meuser. “A lot of these things have been developing over time,” Evans admits. “In 2014, we were selected to be the pilot borough in a tax incentive financing program. That was another tool in the bag, where we were able to use some of the taxes collected here in support of all those different planks in the downtown restoration, and economic development programs. C.R.I.Z. has been an extra tool in the bag, to fight blight in the downtown business community, 110 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 06