Developer John Basalyga intends to move forward with his original renovation plans for the Coney Island Lunch property in downtown Scranton despite a collapse of the building's facade Monday morning.
Emergency crews were dispatched to Lackawanna Ave. around 6:52 a.m. 515 was dispatched to report that a building had partially collapsed into the street and there was debris in the street.
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City officials issued a condemnation order Monday so the property owner's engineers could evaluate the building's structural integrity. The city engineer, building code official, fire inspectors and outside inspectors responded to the property under construction.
On Thursday, Basalyga said the collapse should not change the design of the project.
“We stabilized the building,” he said. “From my perspective, it’s fixable at the moment. It's just an unfortunate thing that happens to some older buildings. I'm just glad no one got hurt – God was on our side. My plan is to restore it to how it looked before, with the brick facade and arches over the windows. We have masons who can recreate it exactly as it was. It’s a little more time consuming, but it’s important to me.”
In December 2023, JBAS Realty of Basalyga purchased the Coney Island Lunch property from CIL Associates and Pete and Bob Ventura for $300,000, according to a deed filed with the county. He also purchased the adjacent vacant lot and the western exterior wall attached to the Coney Island Lunch building from the Scranton Redevelopment Authority for $32,500. The Venturas, who led the company for nearly 50 years, retired in December.
During a Nov. 14 meeting, the Scranton Historical Architecture Review Board gave Basalyga permission to implement his proposal for the property, which includes illuminated signage and a one-story ice cream stand next to the Texas Wiener store. He is also planning five apartments above the restaurant.
Basalyga believes recent construction work likely led to the collapse.
“(Crews) were in the process of doing some demolition and framing work,” he said. “There was a strong wind that night and we think something burst at the front and fell down. It looked much worse than it was. We're waiting for an engineer's report to see what they want in terms of the solution at the forefront. You will create some drawings for structural supports for rebuilding the front facade. It came apart independent of everything else, so it’s just a matter of how we put it back together.”
Basalyga expects renovation work on the Coney Island property to resume as early as February.
“We're closing Sergei's (a jazz club/event space on Linden Street),” he said. “We will hopefully have that done by the end of the month and then I will move my crews (to Coney Island).”
Basalyga had previously targeted late spring or early summer as the expected completion date for the Coney Island project and does not believe the façade collapse will have a major impact on that timeline.
“It’s not that big,” he said. “The biggest thing is that we have to remove the stucco from the side wall and see what’s behind it. When we start fixing this, we'll be at the forefront. I don’t worry too much about it – things happen and you pick yourself up and keep going.”
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