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WILKES-BARRE — An abandoned factory that’s gone to pot could be the site of a wellness center with a medical marijuana dispensary.
The city council Thursday approved the sale of the former Panam Silk Mills Inc. at 773 S. Franklin St. for $100 and an adjacent lot on Westminster Street for $1,500 to a Carlisle-based business in the process of applying for a state license to dispense medicine derived from the marijuana plant.
Mary Pat Julias and Krista Krebs, business partners in Keystone Center of Integrative Wellness, offered more details of their plans than they did at council’s work session Tuesday in order to present a clearer picture of their operation and allay concerns about marijuana being grown and sold at the center.
“You can compare this to putting up a Rite Aid or a CVS. It is medicine. It is not marijuana as the plant. There is no leaf, anything. It’s not even green. So I just wanted to make that perfectly clear,” Julias, an Avoca native, told council at its regularly scheduled public meeting.
“We don’t even touch it,” Krebs said.
She explained that the center will have case managers for the people receiving the medicine and offer them services and provide resources to better their lives.
Their goal is to get a state license for a dispensary that would be part of the center, which would have human services and job development components as well. They want to put up a $400,000 building on the site after demolishing the factory that’s been an eyesore and vacant since the Redevelopment Authority of Wilkes-Barre purchased it for $2,000 in 2001 after an intentionally set fire heavily damaged the property.
The low sale price set by the city assessor attracted Julias and Krebs to make an offer through their holding company, Artanor LLC. They also said they would take on the cost of demolition, estimated at $75,000 to $80,000 and create jobs through the center.
All five council members supported the property sales to the for-profit business.
Before a second and final reading could take place, the council pulled from the agenda an ordinance to restructure part of the city’s $86.2 million debt and issue a $5.5 million bond for repairs to portions of the Solomon Creek wall. It passed by a 3-2 vote on the first reading.
Council Chairwoman Beth Gilbert said the ordinance will be placed on the agenda for the March 23 meeting. “A few of the council members had different issues with the ordinance itself, different things that they want to add to it,” she said.
In other business, the council approved the second and final reading of an ordinance that adds “Quality of Life Regulations” to the City Code of Ordinances. The regulations are similar to those Scranton enacted in 2014 that deal with problems such as junked vehicles, improper storage of trash, high grass and weeds and the removal of ice and snow. The regulations come with corresponding fines and penalties and the ordinance authorizes any public officer to issue tickets for violations.
The council also authorized city officials to apply for a $2 million grant through the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program to assist Albert Holdings 1 LLC with the Innovation Square Project to retain and bring high tech jobs to the downtown.
The council also approved a number of appointments and reappointments:
• William Lewis III and Liza Prokop to the Human Relations Commission.
• Carl Frank, Torre Lippi and Ken Thoma to the Building Inspection Board of Appeals.
• John Livingston to the General Municipal Authority.
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