‘JOHNSTOWN IS HAVING A MOMENT’
$24.4M federal grant could kick-start city revival, officials say
When Ethan Imhoff told friends he was considering applying for the City of Johnstown manager position, they told him he was nuts — if he got it, he would be the 16th person to hold the job in 28 years, including a half dozen who served on an interim basis.
“Management stability was an issue here,” said Mr. Imhoff, a native of Madison, Wis.
Crippled by a declining population, cratered economy and decades of bitter political infighting, Cambria County’s biggest city had been written off as dead by many.
But where others saw headaches, Mr. Imhoff, then the executive director of the Cambria County Planning Commission, saw opportunity.
A year after taking the job as city manager in January 2022, Johnstown is poised for a rebirth after receiving a federal grant of $24.4 million in 2021 that will pay to fix the city’s broken iconic Johnstown Inclined Plane, rebuild an historic Amtrak train station and renew downtown’s central square and transit center.
For Johnstown, where more than one in three residents live in poverty, winning the competitively awarded grant was like hitting the lottery. The money was the biggest award for economic development the city has received in decades.
“Johnstown is having a moment,” the 46-year-old Mr. Imhoff said.
‘Flood City’
Johnstown is best known for the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam in 1889, which flooded the Conemaugh Valley and the city 14 miles
downstream, and killed more than 2,200 people. A flash flood in 1936 and another deluge in 1977 also caused widespread damage and cemented Johnstown’s nickname as Flood City.
Floods weren’t the city’s only economic hardship though.
Johnstown was a steelmaking center since the 1850s, with Bethlehem Steel Corp. emerging as the region’s biggest employer by 1973 with a workforce of 11,800. But pressured by tighter environmental regulations and industry competition in Pittsburgh and Chicago, Bethlehem’s payroll withered to 2,100 employeesby 1982.
The biggest economic blow came in 1992 when Bethlehem shuttered its
Johnstownworks — the same year the city was designated fiscally distressed by the state Department of Community and Economic Development. The label followed at least three years of deficit spending by the city.
All of that is behind Johnstown now. With its budget stabilized, the city is preparing to shed its distressed fiscal status this year after more than three decades, a reversal made possible by decisions city leaders made before Mr. Imhoff’s arrival.
In recent years, the city sold its sewer system — a “high value asset” — to generate a $25 million windfall that was used to shore up its massively underfunded pension plans and shrink monthly support payments by two-thirds. The pension payoff allowed the city, which has an annual budget of about $14 million, to create a capital improvement fund and bank about $6 million in reserves.
“There’s still difficult financial decisions ahead of us, but overall the city is in stable financial condition,” Mr. Imhoff said.
‘Exciting potential’
About half of Johnstown’s $24.4 million Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation, is earmarked for restoration of the city’s historic train station. The Beaux Arts-style rail stop, dedicated in 1916 and today owned by the nonprofit Johnstown Area Heritage Association, will get $11.2 million of the
RAISE grant.
A farmer’s market and pop up vendors are part of the station’s renovation plans, which will come to life just four blocks from the $12.2 million in improvements earmarked for the city’s core and at the Cambria County Transit Authority bus center, said JARA President and CEO Richard Burkert.
Separately, federal infrastructure funds will help increase rail service to Johnstown in a few years by adding another train linking the city to Altoona, Latrobe and Pittsburgh. The train carries 18,000 to 24,000 passengers annually, a total that could double with the newservice, Mr. Burkert said.
“It’s got some exciting potential,” Mr. Burkert said. “The pieces are in place here.”
The hope is that increased traffic will include visitors from Pittsburgh and other cities who are interested in Johnstown’s rich history, wooded Allegheny Mountains and recreational opportunities.
In recent weeks, the city hired New York City-based SCAPE Landscape Architecture for $1.6 million for engineering and design work necessary to renovate the city’s downtown park, an early step in the city’s bid to attract a younger population and key to long term economic vitality.
Jeremy Shearer, a Boise, Idaho, native who moved to Johnstown in the 1990s to open restaurants, said he sees the city being embraced by a younger crowd eager to escape the bustle of places like Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Mr. Shearer, 48, and his wife, Jennifer, own the Stone Bridge Brewing Co. on Franklin Street downtown, which operates three dining areas, including the Wine Loft.
The Wine Loft features a 1,500-bottle collection and the Stone Bridge brewery and eateries have been busy, Mr. Shearer said.
“I notice a younger population — a lot of people coming in from Pittsburgh, parents from Baltimore who wanted to get out of the rat race for a slower-paced life,” he said. “We definitely see a marked growth in audience.”