Lauren Krady Lancaster PA Realtor

Located in the historic downtown Lancaster City area, 16 West Orange St, is The Pottery Works. This creative place has been owned by Marcie Natale for the past 5 and a half years. They have over 250 pieces of pottery and 150 glazes, plus: stencils, stamps, and other tools for you to make your unique creation. Connected to this shop is the Bead Studio, where you can make jewelry of all kinds, but we will try that another day.

Today my daughter and I visited the shop to make a Christmas present for her grandmother. First, you select an item you like; they have mugs, plates, teapots, vases, Christmas ornaments, and even puppies. My daughter chose a puppy that she thought would be the perfect gift. Next you select paint colors. There are lots of colors and even colors with specks or swirls in them.

It's a great place to have a party where you can all paint your pieces together. Check out pictures of their party room and party specials on their website. Kids would love this, as did my daughter, and you don't even have to clean up! The pieces are then glazed by the staff and baked in the kiln for 24 hours. You can pick up your finished piece in a week.

They have lots of great specials throughout the month. This Saturday December 20th is "Day with Grandma & Grandpa;" bring your grandchildren and paint for 1/2 studio fee. Sunday December 21st is "Charity Day" - bring a canned good and receive a 15% discount on any piece of pottery. On December 31st, New Years Eve, as part of Countdown Lancaster (more on that in a later post) you can paint a mug bowl for 5$ when you have the official countdown button. Check out The Pottery Works website for a complete calender of specials!

This was so much fun for both of us. If you don't feel like painting, or if you know someone who would, they have the cutest gift certificates. These small tiles are the actual gift certificate with the amount painted right on! If you haven't completed your holiday shopping, stop by and pick up a gift certificate.

Hours are: Monday 10-6 Tuesday - Saturday 10 -9 Sunday Noon- 6

We wil be able to pick up the puppy figurine on Tuesday just in time for Christmas!

There is a huge building project smack dab in the downtown area of Lancaster City. The Lancaster Convention Center / Mariott at Penn Square will be the biggest building in town. The neat part about this hotel is that they kept the 100 year old facade of the original building, the Watt and Shand store. The project is scheduled to be complete in Spring of 2009.

The new hotel / convention center has 21 feet high ceilings in the lobby, a restaurant that seats 110, a pool and fitness center, and the Commonwealth Ballroom (9100 square feet). There are also several rooms that can be combined to create a 46,000 square foot room, perfect for any function. The picture on the right is what it will look like when finished.

The Mariott at Penn Square has been a controversial project from the beginning. Some people say it won't get enough bookings to be profitable, some local hotels were upset about the competition. One comment I read on the newspaper site was a local business owner that was upset about no additional public restrooms. They want the city to add public restrooms so that tourists won't have to swarm the downtown restaurants just to use the bathrooms. When this issue was brought up at a town meeting the mayor said he would look into it.

Whatever your opinion, here is a video from Lancaster Online where you get to see behind the scenes of the building project. You can also take a virtual tour of the finished product on the Lancaster Convention Center Website.

Lauren Krady is a real estate professional with Coldwell Banker, the nation's oldest and most trusted brand. She is a member of the Jeff Geoghan Realty Group and serves all of the Lancaster City PA homes market with superior customer service and dedication. Contact Lauren to start your home search in Lancaster City and beyond by calling her at (717) 824-7236.

Copper and other Metal thefts from homes have gone up significantly over the past year. With copper prices around 3-4 dollars a pound, thieves are stealing all kinds of crazy things from houses from plumbing to outside air conditioner units. They then take them to a scrap yard and get paid cash for their loot.

We bought two investment properties last year in Lancaster City that were bank owned and vacant. Both houses had all the copper plumbing stolen from the basement. This helped us get thousands off of the price of the houses, but it can be a mess to fix. We then replaced the plumbing with PVC plumbing because it is much cheaper (copper is around $1 a foot and PVC is around 25 cents a foot) and we don't want to run the risk of getting robbed again.

One day this fall when we called the Lancaster City police about some stolen tools, we were informed that just that one police officer was investigating 4 stolen plumbing cases that day!! (And Lancaster City is not a big city.)

Popular Mechanics October 2008 says this:

"The U.S. Dept. of Energy estimates that losses from copper theft alone are costing the U.S. economy about $1 billion a year in replacement costs and lost productivity. And the agency counts only business losses; it doesn't take into consideration the blow to individuals when somebody rips the gutters-or, as happened in Indianapolis recently, the aluminum siding-off a house. "It's the old supply-and-demand equation: When there's more of a demand, customers will pay more for the supply," says Bruce Savage, a spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade organization based in Washington, D.C.

The price of copper, he notes, has more than quadrupled in the past five years, while the value of other base metals, such as iron, steel and aluminum, has also climbed. That upward trend may continue as fast-growing Asian economies ravenously consume raw materials to build urban infrastructure, from telecom systems to office complexes, as well as electronics and other consumer goods.

The crime wave has started to affect local infrastructure in the United States. For instance, last year Seattle police shut down one scrap yard that was buying metal road signs. Honest yard operators report that they've been approached by crooks trying to unload manhole covers, sewer grates and brass components from fire hydrants. And the town of Andover, Mass., recently experienced a copper crime wave as coils of copper cable disappeared from a power substation along with the wiring that controls a railroad crossing gate."

I can't believe the stuff people steal! Are there any neighbors watching while these people are ripping gutters or SIDING off of a house ?! That is just crazy.

The article went on to suggest locking up your house with a deadbolt. (Really? Thanks I hadn't tried that!) But they just break the window and help themselves. I believe in the city it's often people from the block where the house is located; and they know which ones are vacant. My best advice is to get the house occupied quickly and make friends with the neighbors. When we have neighbors on either side looking out for us our houses have been safer.

• Sold - 1 house sold last week for an average price of $137,500 with an average time on the market of 27 days.

• Pending - 3 houses went under agreement

• Expired and Extended - 2 listings expired and 1 of those listings extended their contracts with their agents.

• Active - 103 houses are currently for sale with an average time on the market of 139 days.

• Sold - 2 houses sold last week for an average price of $220,833 with an average time on the market of 92 days.

• Pending - 5 houses went under agreement

• Expired and Extended - 8 listings expired and 6 of those listings extended their contracts with their agents.

• Active - 255 houses are currently for sale with an average time on the market of 124 days.

The East Side neighborhood of Lancaster City, PA is bounded to the west by North Plum Street, to the north generally by New Holland Avenue, to the east by the city line and to the south by King Street. This is an area generally contains a large number of late-nineteenth to early twentieth century residences, as well as an industrial corridor, the Lancaster County Prison, numerous schools and churches and a large park.

At least 75% of the structures in this area are rowhouses. Of these, about half have front porches that appear to be original features. Among the notable buildings along this section of the street is the Appel House at 419 East King Street, which was constructed in 1895-1897 and is a good example of the Chateauesque style in Lancaster. Immediately adjacent to the Appel House is the King Theatre, built around 1949. The facade and marquee of the theatre have recently been restored. The building has been converted into apartments.

The Lancaster County Prison, 625 East King Street, was first occupied on September 15, 1851. The architect was noted prison architect, John Haviland and Konigmacher was the chief mason. In its original form, the building utilized the radiating interior prison plan developed by Haviland in Philadelphia,PA.

Reservoir Park, located just east of the prison, is a two-block section of the East Side which has the two of the city's historic central water reservoirs. The 1905 statue of a lion by Blanche Nevin faces East King Street. This park has a children’s pool with umbrella shaped fountain that is open afternoons in the summer. Free lunches are provided to children before the pool opens around noon. There is a playground, basketball court, and picnic pavilion here.

The McCaskey High School campus includes three school buildings and their associated athletic facilities. McCaskey High was built in 1938. The foyer and the elaborate auditorium might well be the best interiors from the 1930s surviving in Lancaster. To the east is a large football field. Located at 445 Reservoir Street (West Campus) and 1051 Lehigh Avenue (East Campus), J.P. McCaskey High School serves students from both Lancaster City and Lancaster Township. This school is also home to the prestigious International Baccalaureate Program and offers more advanced placement courses than all of the county public schools combined.

Abraham Lincoln Middle School, at 1001 Lehigh Ave, Wickersham Elementary (pictured on the left) at 401 North Reservoir St, and Burrowes Elementary at 1001 East Orange St are also in the East Side of Lancaster.

The Lancaster Science Factory located on the 500 block of New Holland Ave is a hands-on, interactive technology and science center, offering lots of exciting exhibits relating to the physical sciences, engineering, technology and mathematics. The Science Factory is in an old factory building at Urban Place, a project in the former Kerr Factory complex on New Holland Avenue.

Giant Foodstore, The Horse Inn (this place has a neat history, read about it and get a coupon on their website), CVS, Brisas del Caribe, and Villalba Family Restaurant are some of the stores and places to eat in this area.

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